Water treatment

water treatment
Water goes through a number of treatment stages to ensure we have a clean, safe and healthy water supply.

Water filtration helps remove organic matter, sediment and minerals such as iron and manganese from our drinking water. Dam water is treated at nine water filtration plants. Water from the desalination plant is treated on-site at Kurnell. We deliver treated water to customers by a network of over 21,000 km of water pipes, 251 reservoirs and 164 pumping stations.

At the water filtration plants we filter the water through screens to remove twigs, weeds and fish, add compounds (coagulants) to settle out smaller particles, then add fluoride to protect teeth and chlorine to disinfect the water.

The desalination plant uses reverse osmosis technology to extract fresh water from seawater. After screening and pre-treatment to remove any solids and sediment the water is then pushed through membranes under high pressure. Fresh water passes through the membranes and the remaining seawater concentrate is returned to the ocean. The water is then treated to meet Australian Drinking Water Guidelines and transferred to a tank ready for supply to customers.

Find out more about how we manage water quality.