Gold Coast residents raise concerns over ‘gross’, ‘milky’ tap water in northern suburbs

Residents of a Gold Coast suburb have raised fresh concerns over water quality after ‘milky’ brown water started spewing from their taps on Monday. SEE THE VIDEO

FRUSTRATED Gold Coast residents said they have been given no direction as to whether their supplied water is safe to drink, more than 24 hours after “smelly” discoloured water began pouring out of their taps.

Northern Gold Coast residents have taken to social media to complain about the brown, cloudy water coming through the pipes.

Some have resorted to boiling water until conditions improve.

Pimpama mother of three Bekk Stanwell said the water supply in every room of her house turned “gross” and “milky” after the council-supplied water was turned off for several hours on Monday morning.

Tap water at Pimpama is so "milky" it completely covers the paw prints at the bottom of this dog bowl. Photo: Bekk Stanwell

By Tuesday afternoon, it still hadn’t returned to normal.

“It’s not drinkable for my dog, let alone my kids,” she told the Bulletin.

“When it first started coming through the taps it was completely brown, after running it for 10 minutes it was a yellow-brown colour and it’s cloudy.

“It smells chemically, it doesn’t smell right.”

Some residents on social media have suggested the water supply had been mixed with air but Ms Stanwell said it didn’t improve when left to settle as it should if it was aerated.

She has reported the issue to council but said she was concerned about the lack of information available to residents.

“(Council) gave us no guidelines at all,” she said.

Tap water at Pimpama is so "milky" it completely covers the paw prints at the bottom of this dog bowl. Photo: Bekk Stanwell

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Others in the Pimpama area have taken to social media to vent about the “dirty” water.

Carla Hawkins said she found what appeared to be “chips of metal” in her toilet water while Sydney Rickard described “foamy” water at his house; “It goes clear after a while but then comes back, (I) put the dishwasher on and then the plates and stuff absolutely stunk after so had to do it again.”

It comes less than a month after more than a dozen Pimpama residents raised concerns about “disgusting” tap water in the suburb.

Some of the water coming out of taps in Pimpama on Monday. Photo: Facebook

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At the time Gold Coast City Council said the supply was still meeting quality standards.

Council today said it was aware of some fresh complaints after unplanned maintenance works on a section of the Pimpama drinking water network on Monday.

“Works of this type can introduce small air bubbles into the network and also disrupt some of the natural-occurring materials that occur inside of the pipe walls,” a city spokeswoman said.

“As a result of the works, some nearby customers received water that appeared cloudy or contained some dark materials.

“In these situations, customers are advised to run their taps until the appearance of the water returns to normal.”

The spokeswoman urged residents to report concerns about water quality on 1300 000 928.