Australia Weather News

Stricter water restrictions could be on the cards for one of Australia's wettest cities as it heads into its wettest time of the year.

Cairns Regional Council is pleading with residents to reduce water use as it scrambles to fix major infrastructure failures at three local reservoirs.

Two water storage facilities are offline due to structural issues, while the city's largest reservoir is operating at just 60 per cent of its usual capacity after it sprang a leak.

Council CEO Ken Gouldthorp said heavy rainfall typically forced the council to switch off its water treatment plants on certain occasions each summer because of turbidity problems.

"It's important that we really manage demand when that occurs," he said.

"Otherwise, we'll run out of potable water, or we'll reduce our pressure to a point that some people will not have a water supply, and we don't want to get to that stage."

Cr Gouldthorp said the three damaged water storages were "very large … and their particular location and purpose in the system make them critical".

"We are doing our best to bring at least one of those back online by mid-December," he said.

The council first flagged the prospect of having to enforce level-one water restrictions before the end of the year, a fortnight ago.

But citywide water consumption has not reduced since then, with daily use peaking last Friday at 87 megalitres.

Cr Gouldthorp said the goal was for Cairns to limit its water use to about 70ML a day, particularly during wet weather.

A wetter summer ahead

The council's edict to reduce water use comes as the Bureau of Meteorology's latest long-range outlook forecasts a wetter and hotter summer than last year for Far North Queensland.

The signal for above-average rainfall in November has also strengthened.

Permanent water restrictions are in place across Cairns, limiting the use of sprinklers to certain days and times.

"The awareness of those water restrictions, I think, has dropped off, and we need people to know about it and adhere to them," Cr Gouldthorp said.

He said there was a "real and genuine risk" the council would need to introduce tougher restrictions if heavy rain forced it to switch a treatment plant off.

"We don't want to go there — our preference is to gain cooperation from the community," he said.

Maintenance decisions questioned

The council is in the process of building a new water intake and treatment plant to bolster its potable water supply.

It has received $390 million in state and federal funding for the $472 million project, due to be completed next year.

But critics of the council say the current issues are a result of chronic underinvestment in the maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Richie Bates, a former Cairns councillor who chaired a water committee, said there had been past failures to address problems that had been flagged as "high priority".

Cairns state MP Michael Healy said there were "legitimate questions to ask" about infrastructure maintenance.

"That is the sole responsibility of the regional council, and I, like anybody, get a little concerned when our water — treatment plants have to be turned off because of heavy rain," he said.

Cr Gouldthorp said criticism of the council's track record on maintenance was "harsh".

"Council has invested extensively in the water security stage one project, but we've been nursing our system through and maximising its potential use while that is being built," he said.

"Unfortunately, we've got to a point where some of those aging reservoirs have failed, and unfortunately, they've failed at the same time."