In this section you will learn how water is delivered to you and what happens to it after you've used it.
Supplying drinking water in South Australia is a big challenge. We live in one of the driest inhabited places on Earth and our population is scattered across a large area. While most of us think about the challenge of drinking water only during drought, it's been a big issue since settlement. Our rapidly developed expertise in managing and transporting water has played a vital part in the development of our state.
To get clean, healthy, high-quality water to your tap we take and treat water from a range of different sources. We then move this water to you through a complex, and extensive, network of pipes. Our operations span the length and breadth of South Australia.
While getting water to you is challenging, dealing with sewage is also complicated. Despite the complexity, we are proud that South Australia was the first state to install sewage treatment systems. And Adelaide was the first capital city to achieve secondary treatment of sewage.
Adelaide's sewerage system is made of more than 8700 km of pipes. Three major wastewater treatment plants at Bolivar, Glenelg and Christies Beach treat the water. We also have a smaller treatment plant at Aldinga.
Outside Adelaide's metropolitan area, there are 20 treatment plants. Of these, the only one that is privately operated is at Victor Harbor.