State of the Industry Report highlights successes and challenges

TasWater has welcomed the 2012-13 Tasmanian Water & Sewerage State of the Industry Report, which highlights major improvements in drinking water quality and customer service.

CEO Mike Brewster said that the report also confirmed that ongoing investment in ageing water and sewerage infrastructure would be required over the next decade.

“We are very pleased that we were able to halve the percentage of Tasmanians receiving poor quality drinking water in 2012-13 through significant investments in improving water quality around the state,” Mr Brewster said.

“It is also pleasing that we have improved the performance of our call centres so we can answer enquiries and resolve complaints much more quickly.

“We’re continuing to focus on making even more improvements in these areas and have made significant further progress over the last 10 months.”

The State of the Industry Report also highlighted the inability of sewage treatment plants around the state to meet modern environmental standards set by regulators.

“TasWater’s major challenge over the next decade is to bring our sewerage treatment facilities around the state up to standard. Many of these plants are ageing or were simply not built to meet the demand and the environmental standards that are now required,” Mr Brewster said.

“We are working to address this through projects such as the decommissioning of the Taroona Sewage Treatment Plant, upgrades to treatment plants in Rosebery, Deloraine, Kingborough, Launceston, Brighton; and the planning for a Greater Launceston Sewerage Strategy to reduce impacts on the Tamar Estuary.

“Our 2015-18 Price & Service Plan will budget for a large number of sewerage infrastructure upgrades, but we also need to be mindful that these upgrades are funded by our customers and therefore we cannot increase charges unreasonably to increase the pace of improvements.”

Mr Brewster said that the report clearly demonstrates that there are competing priorities for TasWater in terms of making critical improvements so people have clean drinking water and a reliable sewerage service, while also trying to keep costs down for customers as best we can.

He encouraged customers to be involved in the consultation process for TasWater’s 2015-18 Price & Service Plan, which will take place later this year.
TasWater CEO Mike Brewster