Water treatment

Water in dams (and rivers) is called raw water, and contains a lot of dust, dirt and decomposing leaves. Before we can use the water, this material must be removed. At the water treatment plant on Mount Kynoch the dirt particles are removed through a processes of flocculation and filtration. Even the fine particles are removed - they are made to join into large clumps that will be heavy enough to sink. The flocculation process uses a coagulant mixed in the water to cause this to happen. The coagulant itself is removed from the water following this process.

Raw water also contains many kinds of living organisms such as tiny plants and animals and bacteria. Most bacteria are harmless, but there are some - the pathogenic types - which can cause illness in humans. These bacteria can be removed by various treatment processes, including chlorination.

More detailed information about the water treatment process can be seen in our related documents below:

Bore water (also called groundwater) comes from rain which has seeped down through rock layers in the ground into the aquifers, or cavities, in the rocks. Some of this water comes from a long way underground - Toowoomba's twenty bores range between 30m-100m deep into the basalt aquifer.

Groundwater goes through a natural filtering process as it seeps through the rocks. Sometimes it picks up high levels of minerals which cause it to become 'hard'. If water is hard it will not lather well so some of our water is made 'soft', or easy to lather, by passing it through special filters. Bore water is chlorinated before passing into the water reticulation system to ensure it is free of any harmful bacteria that may have entered it after it is pumped from underground.