Water supplies restored

Geoff Provest, Robert McClelland, Justine Elliot and Barry Longland watch Harley Short loading sand bags at Banora Point.

John Gass

TWEED Shire Council has restored supplies of water for more than 75,000 residents.

Last night council technical staff restroed one of the pumps at the Bray Park pumping station and began delivering water in to the distribution network that supplies 75,000 residents across the Tweed, including the major centres of

Tweed Heads, Banora Point, Tweed Coast, Murwillumbah and all other surrounding residential

areas.

Vital equipment in the pump station was damaged following a power surge caused by an electrical

failure on Wednesday.

Tweed Mayor Barry Longland said he hoped residents would cooperate in continuing to minimise

their water use for at least today.

"While treated water is now being pumped into the distribution system, we're still recovering from the

low levels due to the outage since Wednesday," Councillor Longland said.

"The situation reached a serious level with around 24 hours of water left in the system.

"I had every confidence our technical staff would be able to fix the problem in time, and they did.

"I'd like to thank all the Council staff, suppliers, contractors and external agencies who were involved

in achieving this outcome.

"In particular, I'm proud of the professionalism and commitment of our technical and field-based staff.

"We also thank our water customers for their cooperation during this water shortage," he said.

Council staff are monitoring water supply levels and distributing water to reservoirs as required.

There are also measures still available should the single pump fail to deliver water.

Council is still carting water to the village of Tyalgum, as the water from the Oxley River is too dirty for

the local water treatment plant to operate. Tyalgum residents are also asked to minimise their water

use as much as possible until further advised.

Uki village residents remain unaffected as the village has its own water supply.

Yesterday the council trucked in a diesel generator unit, which is still available as a back-up should the pumping station fail again.

Yesterday Cr Longland toured the Tweed's flood-ravaged areas with Federal Minister for Emergency Management Robert McClelland, Richmond MP Justine Elliot and Tweed MP Geoff Provest yesterday to assess the flood damage from Wednesday's rain system.

Mr McClelland said he was in the region to assess the area for disaster relief.

"We flew over Murwillumbah and there were still a few properties that have been inundated," Mr McClelland said.

"There is crop loss but we don't know the full extent of the damage yet."

Mr McClelland said the region was likely to get disaster relief funding because the threshold was low.

"We have a triggered threshold of $250,000 for in individual cases to help with funding for clean-ups and evacuation centres."

Cr Longland said Tweed's infrastructure loss would have already passed the threshold.