Contact call-out to River Murray communities

SA Water is asking people in the Riverland and Murraylands to register their mobile phone number with the utility, to enable it to provide important and timely notification on how the River Murray flood could be impacting water and wastewater infrastructure in their area.

There is currently no impact to the safety or reliability of local water or wastewater services provided by SA Water, and extensive preparations are underway to help maintain this, where possible.

SA Water’s General Manager Customer and Commercial Danny Moore said this may change however, as high flows reach peak levels over coming weeks.

“If our ability to maintain your normal water or wastewater services changes, we want to let you know what’s happening, what we’re doing to manage it and what we might need you to do to help,” Danny said.

“We will use a range of communication channels to share this information with the community, but for updates specific to your area, direct contact, such as via SMS, will be the most helpful.

“In addition to providing safe and reliable water and wastewater services, our priority through this event remains keeping our people and the community around us safe, and part of this is being able to provide you with accurate and practical information, with as much notice as possible.”

SA Water has identified and prioritised its operational locations that could be impacted by the high flows, and is preparing these sites for the expected peak, to best maintain services for its customers.

“The main challenge we have is the potential for inundation of our treatment infrastructure in low-lying areas adjacent the river, as well as what this means for the connecting networks,” Danny said.

“This could lead to temporary drinking water supply interruptions, if our ability to deliver or safely treat the water is limited, or a temporary disruption to your sewer service, if we need to isolate impacted sections of the pipe network to help reduce sewer overflows caused by floodwater infiltration.

“Some of the things we are doing to mitigate this include raising the height of protective embankments, deploying back-up pumps and generators, and storing extra materials and equipment, in case site access and transport routes are cut.

“One of the things you can do now to help manage through the start of a potential water supply interruption, is store water in large containers or similar, aiming for around 20 litres of water per person in your household.”

To update your contact details to receive notification of interruptions to SA Water’s services, visit sawater.com.au/notification-register.

Contact:

Phone:

Email: