AFTER Roma ran out of water earlier this year due to inability to cope with demands in peak water periods, Maranoa Regional Council want to pre-empt any future demand issues in both Roma and Mitchell.

In the council meeting, all councillors voted in support of implementing a third bore in the Mitchell water supply and a replacement bore in Roma to address the current issues, including lack of redundancy and pressure issues.

A 1.5ML reservoir in Mitchell has also been proposed, with another issue being the lack of storage which is currently less than half the required storage to meet accepted industry practice of 2.3ML. The additional of a further 1.5ML reservoir would satisfy the requirements, with the current two reservoir towers making a total of 0.925ML.

The consumers on the Mitchell water network will benefit from the implementation of this strategy, providing more security of supply as well as significantly improving pressures, even distribution and firefighting capacity to parts of the town.

2016/17 was Mitchell’s highest consumption period due to the heatwaves experienced, with a maximum day’s consumption being 3.390ML in comparison to an average daily consumption of 1.023ML.

Councillor David Schefe said implementing a third bore will pre-empt any future issues, after the Roma community ran out of water earlier this year due to the bores not coping in peak times.

“Currently there’s two bores but one alone wouldn’t cope if the other broke down, it wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand,” he said.

“We thought we were in front with Roma but we had a few issues around that peak time before Australia Day.

“A lot of people were coming back to Roma from holidays and then we had sporting organisations starting to water the fields at same time so people ran out of water for two to three hours.”

In addition to the third Mitchell bore, there has been a motion to grant a replacement bore in Roma.

“Roma has grown considerably and requires better water pressure. Water was going into the reservoir in Roma because they had to pump so far and getting drained quicker then it could come out,” Cr Schefe said.

“So the bore will be implemented to address that issue. We had another bore capped off and had to get rid of it, so this will be to replace it.

“It was important for us to go with a local business for the work, so we’ve gone with Johnson drilling so the money filters back into the Maranoa.”

The bore is expected to be completed before Christmas and functioning in February, while the Mitchell bore will be complete before the end of the financial year.

The new bore will be externally funded, with external funding to be sought for projects under this strategy in future years.