Sustainability Report 2006/07Our metropolitan retail water partners
Melbourne Water works closely on a day-to-day basis with the retail water businesses that supply water to Melbourne homes and industry – City West Water, South East Water and Yarra Valley Water.
Our relationships include supporting and jointly funding the Victorian Government’s Our Water Our Future program and working together on projects to improve the quality of water supplied to consumers. One such project occurred in 2006/07 in response to customer complaints to City West Water in February 2006 about the taste and odour of water supplied to East Keilor.
Melbourne Water helped City West Water to install a mobile chlorine-dosing unit and committed to working together to investigate the possible factors behind the issue, including the potential role of the coal tar enamel lining of supply pipes.
An in-situ trial was carried out along the Greenvale-St Albans main to assess the impact of long detention times on water quality. The trial, which took place in September 2006, required City West Water to provide an alternate supply to areas normally supplied by the main while it was taken out of service. For three weeks, water in the main was tested and, for the first 10 days, these tests showed that the water was of acceptable aesthetic water quality. An internal inspection of the main after the testing showed that it was relatively clean and that the taste and odour issues were most likely due to the enamel lining.