Douglas Shire Council turns off water supply to Port Douglas

Residents and visitors to Port Douglas have been left with no water since last night after an emergency decision to halt supply.

Douglas Shire Council shut off water supply to Port Douglas residents overnight. Picture: iStock

Residents and visitors to Port Douglas have been left with no water since Sunday night after an emergency decision to halt supply.

Douglas Shire Council turned off the taps in Port Douglas at around 8pm on Sunday night due to low reservoir levels, causing all visitors and residents in the area to be left without water throughout the night and into Monday.

Douglas Shire Mayor Michael Kerr said the shut down had been caused by unforeseen usage across the network.

“The major problem was the usage yesterday, we went through far too much water for what we should have done with level four restrictions in place,” Mr Kerr said.

Earlier, in a statement, council suspected a major leak in the pipeline caused a significant drop in the reservoir but later confirmed only a small leak was found and has since been fixed.

“Our priority was to turn the water off so we didn’t waste anymore,” Mr Kerr said.

“We’re still trying to go through all the data to see where the major usages were.

“We need to ensure people are only using water for the necessities.”

Mr Kerr advised there was still no timeline for when water would be turned back on for Port Douglas residents but confirmed engineers brought in from interstate would be onsite today to find a temporary solution while they work to permanently fix the network.

Boulders and debris at the Mossman Water Treatment Plant intake in late December. Picture: Supplied

“Council is working to restore the water as quickly as possible, but this needs to be done carefully to avoid further water main breaks,” Mr Kerr said.

“We’re hoping to get water back on for the Wonga area this afternoon.”

He advised residents to strictly follow restrictions once water was restored.

“Make sure you are following level 4 restrictions until advised differently,” he said.

Mr Kerr added the network would not currently withstand a hit from predicted Cyclone Kirrily if it were to start tracking north but remained positive the temporary solution would provide stability if rains were to persist.

“At this stage, there’s so much sediment caused by floods in the mountains and each time it rains it washes so much dirt into the reservoirs, it just can’t cope with it in its current state,” Mr Kerr said.

Whyanbeel water treatment plant is currently producing for the region with council aiming to reach 35 per cent capacity before turning water on to Wonga, Rocky Point and Miallo.

Bottled and non-potable water is available to residents at Wonga Beach State School and Port Douglas community hall.

Council confirmed residents were able to collect up to three litres of drinking water and unlimited amounts of non-potable water from either location.

On Monday morning, Port Douglas and Mossman reservoirs were at 12 per cent capacity, Craiglie hit 7 per cent and Whyanbeel was at 26 per cent and growing.

Originally published as Douglas Shire Council turns off water supply to Port Douglas