Jan 23 - Tully and Mission Beach water supply works

Work on improving water quality for Tully and Mission Beach areas is progressing with the new Wheatley’s Hill 4.6 megalitre reservoir under construction and negotiations well under way with the State Government for the Bulgun Creek intake reservoir site.

Mayor John Kremastos said Cassowary Coast Regional Council was moving forward with delivery of a 4.5 megalitre Bulgun Creek intake reservoir in Tully Gorge National Park near the existing Bulgun Creek water supply intake.

"Design of the reservoir is largely complete and funding has been set aside in this year’s budget for construction of the reservoir," Cr Kremastos said.

"We will be calling for tenders for construction as soon as the land tenure has been resolved."

The preferred site for the reservoir was confirmed following environmental and cultural heritage assessments.

Last June the Council lodged an application to secure the land for the proposed reservoir in the national park area and is working through information requests from the State Government.

"We thank our residents in the Tully area for their patience. The process to secure the reservoir site in the national park involves considerable numbers of stakeholders and the process is proving slow, but we hope this will be resolved before too long," Cr Kremastos said.

The $4 million Wheatley’s Hill reservoir, near South Mission Beach, will have sufficient storage to allow continued clean water supply for the beach communities for the majority of recorded turbidity events at the intake.

"Unless there is a prolonged period of high turbidity, we will not need to issue a boil water alert for the beach area when the Wheatley’s Hill reservoir is completed later this year," he said.

Council crews had completed installation of the approach water mains up Wheatley’s Hill and Tully-based CCUS was now progressing on the contract works for the reservoir and associated chlorine-dosing building.

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