Water supply

Hunter Water provides water and sewerage services to almost half-a-million people from five local government areas – Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Maitland, Cessnock and Port Stephens. There are over 200,000 properties connected to our water network.

Bulk water is also supplied to Dungog Council and to small parts of Singleton and the Great Lakes area. We also have the capacity to supply up to 35 megalitres per day to the Central Coast.

We deliver on average 200 megalitres of water a day using assets worth around $2.5 billion.

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.