Yass residents still unable to drink their tap water

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Residents of Yass in the New South Wales southern Tablelands, 60 kilometeres north of Canberra, are still unable to drink their tap water, seven days after they were first told to boil it.

Transcript

00:00 This is what the water looks like in the Yass Valley today, and it looks rather drinkable.

00:09 But it's not, and for the past seven days people here haven't had safe drinking water.

00:14 Some days it looks yellow, murky and tastes gritty.

00:17 This is because of what's called turbidity.

00:19 It's where levels of silt and mud can't be filtered out when the water is being treated.

00:24 The local water treatment plant hasn't been upgraded in more than 30 years, and any time

00:29 there's heavy rain, the same thing happens again.

00:32 It's left local businesses having to buy slabs of bottled water for their customers, leaving

00:36 them hundreds of dollars out of pocket, and the local council is refusing to help foot

00:40 the bill.

00:41 It's left the local community worried about their health, and some doctors say they've

00:45 noticed an increase in gastro-like cases, but it's unclear if it is connected to the

00:50 water quality.

00:51 A week on, some people are only finding out now that they can't drink the water.

00:55 And that's not overly surprising when the water looks like this.

00:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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