Despite it never happening in 'recorded history', the Barrington River has stopped flowing and Gloucester has lost its main water source.
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MidCoast Council had an emergency plan in place and on Boxing Day it ran a trial water run from the Tea Gardens/Hawks Nest aquifer to the tower on Cemetery Road to make sure everything was in place if the river flow dropped below the required amount.
According to council's director of infrastructure and engineering services, Rob Scott, so long as the flow was above three megalitres, Gloucester was okay.
On Monday, December 30, council made the decision to start carting in water.
Until Gloucester sees a fair bit of rain, council will be carting water to town.
From Thursday, there will be a fleet of five water tankers making the four hour returned trip, with three operating on a continuous 24 hours basis and the other two as needed up to 14 hours per day.
Council's plan is to make 26 trips per day. Prior to that the trips have been more constant as smaller tankers are being used.
"Trucks can be expected from 30 to 60 minutes apart. We are expecting it to be full speed for carting for the next two weeks," Mr Scott explained.
"There are some prospects for rain later this month which might result in some river flow that we can use. We will extract from the Barrington River and reduce carting where we can, however until rainfall occurs we will need to keep carting water to meet demand."
Staying at level four recognises what the community has done to minimise water usage already.
- Rob Scott
As the usage in Gloucester has been fairly consistent and in line with the level four water restrictions target, council hasn't needed to elevate the town to level five emergency.
"Whilst we haven't gone to level five we have relocated the water carters to using sources other than the Gloucester system and we have also allowed the car wash to operate on 50 per cent of their normal usage, so usage in the Gloucester system is further reduced," Mr Scott said.
"Staying at level four recognises what the community has done to minimise water usage already. We will be waiting to confirm the subsidy arrangement before making a decision on further restrictions."
Council estimates that overall carting is a bit higher than $20 per kilolitre, but the cost is eligible for up to a 90 per cent government subsidy.
"We will be working on the costs of carting and the proportion of the subsidy now that we are starting to get real figures. Over the past few days demand has been around 550kL per day."
Council will make a significant investment over the next five to 10 years in water infrastructure, including a multi-million dollar commitment to water storage.
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