A message from the Incident Manager at Southeast Water

Good afternoon,

I am writing to give you an update on water supplies in Brightling, Punnets Town, Three Cups and the surrounding areas.

 At this time, all customers have their water supply, however, there is a real risk the storage levels could fall below the point at which our booster pumps at the nearby drinking water storage tank can operate, and we are doing everything we can to avoid this happening. 

 Why has this happened?

 Due to prolonged warm, dry weather across our region, we’re having to pump much more drinking water to customer taps than normal.

• Yesterday, we pumped 637 million litres of water into the network, against a July average of 588 million litres a day. 

• This is causing water to be drawn from the network quicker than we can treat it to refill our drinking water storage tanks. 

• Resulting in some tanks having lower levels of water than we would like.

While customers are all currently in supply, if the pumps do stop working, this will impact around 1,190 properties in Brightling, Punnets Town, Three Cups and the surrounding areas.  

 What are we doing to prevent this?

We are actively monitoring water levels across our region and balancing water supply to all customers. We are assessing all options to ensure a continued supply to all customers.

We are also using our tankers to support the network in the area and boost water supplies in the region. 

What are we doing to support customers in the event there is a supply interruption?

We know any supply interruption is disruptive and frustrating, especially during warm, dry weather.. 

As a precaution, this afternoon we will be proactively delivering bottled water to all impacted customers, not just those on our Priority Services Register. We are urging everyone, across our supply region, to use water for essential purposes only – cooking, drinking and hygiene. 

Next update

Please be assured we are doing everything we can to maintain supplies to all customers. We wanted to make you aware that we were carrying our proactive bottled water deliveries as a precaution only.

Thank you for your understanding and support. We will provide you with a further update should the situation change.