For the past nine months, the first nations community of Cherbourg north-west of Brisbane has had to boil water to make it safe to drink. The Queensland state government has promised funding for a new water treatment plant, but residents have little confidence it will fix the problem.
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00:00Just three hours drive from Brisbane, Cherbourg's 1,800 residents have substandard access to
00:08drinking water, according to the local council.
00:11It's probably in the last 20, 25 years that we haven't been making a high enough quality
00:17of water to be the standard with the rest of Queensland.
00:20The locals need to boil the town water to make it safe, due to a failing water treatment
00:24plant.
00:25The 70-year-old system can't cope with heavy rains, leading to a muddy water supply and
00:29e-coli outbreaks.
00:30Sort of towards the end of spring, down into the summer time, we get our big storms and
00:36as operators that's a nightmare for us.
00:38The most recent boil water alert lasted nine months, but residents caring for the most
00:43vulnerable say they haven't used the town water for decades.
00:46It's just the health and well-being of the children and safety for our children to keep
00:49in.
00:50They're melty.
00:51We know that it can cause diarrhoea or gastro and rotavirus.
00:56The child care centre pays around $600 per month out of its operational budget for bottled
01:01water.
01:02If it was a non-indigenous community, I think the problem would be solved.
01:06And sometimes we feel like, why do we have to wait and wait and wait?
01:11$26 million in state and federal funding has now been committed to help fix the problem.
01:16With the upgraded infrastructure, we strongly believe that with my team that we can manage
01:22the, well we must provide clean water to our community.
01:26While the Cherbourg water plant upgrade isn't an election promise, the state government
01:29says it will secure a safer source of water for the community and should put an end to
01:33residents needing to frequently boil their own water.
01:36But some residents aren't so sure.
01:38They're not confident, but we've got to be optimistic too and hoping that hopefully they'll
01:44do it right this time.