Town Water Risk Reduction Program 

NEWSLETTER ISSUE #19 | NOVEMBER 2022

Welcome to the November edition of the Town Water Risk Reduction Program newsletter. 

Stay safe with widespread flooding in regional NSW

Many parts of the state are currently experiencing heavy rainfall and flooding. We hope you and your communities stay safe during these extreme conditions. Information about emergency relief for town water supplies and contact details for your regional DPE Water team is available on the department’s website.

Roadshow update - Register for local water utilities webinar

DPE Water and NSW Health invite local water utilities and stakeholders to attend a ‘local water utilities webinar’ in place of the postponed November roadshows.

Representatives from both agencies will attend the interactive sessions and cover a range of topics including the Regulatory and Assurance Framework, Safe and Secure Water Program and Health Based Targets, with questions welcomed throughout.

Two sessions are scheduled and the format for each webinar will be the same. We appreciate your attendance at one webinar only and attendees MUST register their details here:

Once registered, you will receive a Microsoft Teams invite with instructions that will allow you to join on the day. These sessions will be recorded and made available for those unable to attend.

We look forward to seeing you virtually ahead of the festive season and are committed to organising face-to-face workshops with local water utilities in regional areas early next year.

Provide your feedback on the department’s regulation and support of local water utilities

The latest 6-monthly regulator perception survey is now open. Feedback received from the survey will help to inform and improve how the department regulates, supports and works in partnership with local water utilities.

We would appreciate you taking the time to complete the survey as we value your feedback, and all responses are anonymous.

The survey is open until 31 December 2022 and will take around 5-7 minutes to complete. We will share the responses on our website in early 2023, as well as a comparison with previous survey results. You can view the past survey results on our website.

Case studies to support local water utility decision-makers

In response to feedback from the local water utility sector, we have developed a suite of materials to raise awareness of the risks in water management, and the roles and responsibilities for councillors and other decision makers in regional NSW water utilities.

We have developed 6 case studies with local councils from across NSW about managing local water utility incidents and events. These case studies provide insights into the risks and opportunities facing local water utility decision-makers.

• Managing discoloured water – Bathurst Regional Council
• Managing a contamination incident – Kempsey Shire Council
• Managing a chemical overdose incident – MidCoast Council
• Managing a recycled water cross contamination event – Port Macquarie-Hastings Council
• Managing coinciding events to manage water quality – Tenterfield Shire Council
• Managing a dam safety event – Upper Lachlan Shire Council

Thanks to the local water utilities involved in developing these case studies.

Update on strategic planning outcomes guidance

Throughout November we are making more guidance available on the department’s website to provide information to local water utilities on the department’s assurance framework for strategic planning. We are publishing these documents as they are finalised, guidance on the following outcome areas is now available:

• Understanding service needs
• Understanding water quality
• Understanding environmental impacts
• Understanding system capacity, capability and efficiency
• Understanding other risks and challenges
• Understanding resourcing needs
• Understanding revenue sources
• Understanding solutions to deliver services

Quality assurance framework for the department’s regulation and assurance of local water utilities

Our final quality assurance framework for the department’s regulation and assurance of local water utilities, supports the department’s new regulatory and assurance framework. 

We appreciate the feedback we received from stakeholders during consultation on the draft quality assurance framework. Comments were considered and addressed in the final document including:

• adding the frequency for the collection of measures with indicators measured annually or more frequently
• clarifying the ‘advisory and support’ role within measures for internal and external quality assurance
• clarifying that the regulator perception survey will continue and be used to collect external quality assurance measures
• defining the interaction between external and internal measures, and that these will be used together by the department for quality assurance
• noting that any expansion of the quality assurance framework scope will be developed collaboratively with the local water utility sector.

10,000 years of water modelling from stochastic climate data

DPE Water is working to make models and data publicly available, as part of our commitment to transparency under the NSW Water Strategy.

We’ve recently added Water Modelling-Stochastic Climate Data to the SEED Open Data Portal. This is the first time NSW-wide stochastic climate data has been made easily available to the general public.

We’ve generated 10,000-year daily data sets of rainfall and potential evapotranspiration, from 130 years of historical daily records and paleo-climate data of about 500 years. We’ve used “stochastic” methods which can generate large artificial datasets that can give us a good idea of what sort of conditions we should expect to see into the future. 

This data is used in a range of water models of varying types, purposes, and complexity. Datasets are now available for: 

• Border Rivers
• Far North Coast
• Gwydir
• Lachlan
• Macquarie
• Murray
• Murrumbidgee
• Namoi
• North Coast
• South Coast.

We will shortly release data sets for the Greater Hunter, Sydney Metro, and Western Regions, which will make datasets available for all of NSW. We’re also releasing the metadata and quality assurance information, and a map viewer.

Water Efficiency Framework

We are seeking new ways and approaches to working with the community to ensure we have secure, reliable water sources and to build future resilience to climate change. Water efficiency is an important way to look after our resources and ensure we are only using what we need.

Along with representatives from the water sector, councils and the private sector we have designed a best practice guide for water efficiency, the NSW Water Efficiency Framework. This framework provides clear steps to design, deliver and review water efficiency programs. This guide is designed for government, water utilities, councils and large businesses to use when implementing water efficiency initiatives.

Take a look at the guide and more information: water.dpie.nsw.gov.au/plans-and-programs/water-efficiency/framework

Further information and feedback

Visit the Town Water Risk Reduction Program website for more detailed information.

Have your say 

For more information or enquires please email the team at regional.town.water@dpie.nsw.gov.au

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