Hughenden locals fed up with water quality as CopperString project looms
29/10/25 ABC News by Gabrielle Becerra Mellett & Brooke Tindall
Dirty, cloudy and tasting of chlorine is how some locals in a north-west Queensland town describe their drinking water.
Business owner Jodie Coward has lived in the rural community of Hughenden, south-west of Townsville, for more than 30 years.
She said the current water quality was the worst she had seen.
“I haven’t drunk our tap water now for probably over two years,”she said.
“Here at the shop, I have filters on my drinking taps.
“At home, I boil the water and use activated carbon to get rid of the contaminants.”
The small town in the Flinders Shire, with a population of just over 1,000 people, has been plagued by water quality issues for years.
Some experience a strong chlorine taste or brown discolouration, while others report no issues.
The township faced six weeks of boil-water notices last December after the detection of E. Coli.
Townsville Hospital and Health Service acting chief executive Rex O’Rourke said there were no reports that chlorine was breaching maximum levels.
Flinders Shire Mayor Kate Peddle said the water met drinking quality standards but acknowledged issues with the town’s water treatment plant and network system.
Residents want the problem fixed urgently, as the town is preparing to become the centre of the state government’s multi-billion-dollar CopperString project.
Heart of CopperString
Hughenden is set to become the heart of CopperString, with early works already beginning on a $225 million Flinders substation.
Hundreds of people are set to move into a workers’ camp in the town.
The planned 1,100 kilometres of powerline from Townsville to Mount Isa will connect mines and towns in the north-west to the national electricity grid.
Last month, Treasurer David Janetzki reaffirmed CopperString would be delivered, and that work on the “eastern link” — between Charters Towers and Hughenden — would start first.
Within that announcement was an expanded $50-million community benefits fund for water and sewerage infrastructure in Hughenden, as well as road maintenance and other council initiatives.
In a statement, Mr Janetzki said the state government would work closely with councils to prioritise and allocate money from that fund, but did not provide a time frame for the delivery of works.
New infrastructure needed
Cr Kate Peddle said the council was facing at least $35 million to replace water treatment plants, while also dealing with piping issues.
“Our network that delivers the water, that’s providing the turbidity issues we have, so the discolouration that the community is seeing,” she said.
Cr Peddle said many of the problems were compounded by historical underinvestment in core infrastructure and diminished funding or grants from the state and federal governments over the years.
She welcomed the recent funding announcement and said there was now an urgency to begin work.
“CopperString is an incredible, catalytic project for our communities, but in order for us to support them our core infrastructure really needs to be strong,”she said.
“We know that potentially 500 men and women are going to be in that camp over the next six years and that’s going to put a lot of pressure on our already frail and challenging infrastructure.”
‘Tastes like pool water’
In the meantime, residents like Jodie Coward said the trust in Hughenden’s water was gone.
“I don’t think that in today’s day and age we should be living in an area where you have to boil the water, or drink bottled water, to be able to drink palatable water,” she said.
Local Aaron Zammit said he had been buying bottled water in Hughenden for just over four years.
“On a bad day, you don’t drink it because it’s brown, so you don’t really want to taste that,” he said.
“Sometimes you pour it and it’s a really white sediment that you can’t see through.
“It just tastes like chlorine. It tastes like pool water.”
Mr Zammit said the issues with Hughenden’s water were widely known.
“You see it online all the time, on Facebook, people that move to the town,” he said.
“[They say], ‘Oh the town’s great, the people are great, but what’s with the water?’”
Hughenden community subject to ‘unpleasant’ tap water since early December demands answers
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-23/hughenden-subject-to-unpleasant-tap-water/13082616 Residents of a north-west Queensland town say they have been burdened by discoloured, foul-smelling water for more than a month, with many resorting to buying and filtering water each day.Some have experienced brown drinking water, while others have reported strong chlorine.
The Flinders Shire Council has assured Hughenden residents that the supply had not been over-chlorinated and the water was “not harmful to health”.
It blamed increased chlorination, granular chlorine, broken pipes, and bugs for the discolouration and foul smell.
During a meeting in December, Queensland Health recommended that the Flinders Shire Council increase chlorine levels to reach Australian Drinking Standard Guidelines.
It was recommended to increase levels to the standard 0.2 milligrams per litre and reduce levels of algae in town water.
That target has still not been reached, but the town has been stuck with discoloured and smelly water ever since.
Water ‘not pleasant’, but ‘not harmful’: mayor
Flinders Shire CEO Daryl Buckingham told the ABC the chlorine level was yet to reach the recommended 0.2 milligram per litre.
He did not say what the chlorine level was currently sitting at.
Mayor Jane McNamara said council staff were working to flush the water in affected areas.
“Businesses that really rely on clean water they’re being made a priority because that’s affecting their business, and food outlets,” she said.
A Hughenden resident who wished to remain anonymous said locals were wary to complain.
“We live in a small community,” the resident said.
Cr McNamara cautioned residents against making complaints on social media as council staff could not respond.
Instead, residents needed to make an official complaint.