Our Operations
Hunter Water operates a very complex and large water, waste water and stormwater system that services almost half-a-million people from five local government areas – Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock and Port Stephens.
Click here to see a map of our operating area
There are three main components to our system, and we have also provided some interesting statistics about our performance and resources:
There are over 200,000 properties connected to our water network.
Most of our water comes from three main sources – Grahamstown and Chichester Dams and Tomago Sandbeds, with some small contribution being made from Tomaree sandbeds.
This water comes from both surface water (from Chichester and Grahamstown Dams) and ground water, from Tomago and Tomaree sandbeds. Our catchments include some of the most pristine areas of Australia.
We treat the water at five water filtration plants at Dungog, Grahamstown, Lemon Tree Passage, Anna Bay and Glovers Hill to a standard that complies with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Organic matter, sediment and minerals such as iron and manganese are removed, the water is disinfected with chlorine and fluoride is added to prevent tooth decay.
We then distribute the water to our customers via our network of 76 service reservoirs, 84 pumping stations and 4548 kilometres of water mains.
When we think about water we often think only of receiving clean drinking water in our kitchen tap. Yet we also send water and wastes away from our households, commercial premises, schools, hospitals and industry. Wastewater enters a network of wastewater pipes that all ultimately travel to a wastewater treatment facility, where it can be processed.
Hunter Water operates 17 wastewater treatment works and there are over 200,000 sewer connections to our system. We maintain 4,477km of sewer main systems, which require 380 pumping stations.
Collecting and transporting stormwater is a vitally important part of our work. To manage stormwater, we use large scale trunk drainage systems which take the stormwater and transports it to receiving waters.
We provide these stormwater services to the lower Hunter, with around 100km of stormwater channels in Cessnock, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie.
If you are interested in statistics and performance reports, we have collected the most critical information, including: