South Australia's SA Water announces a continuity plan amid a growing coronavirus crisis:
As with water utilities across the world, we have a range of measures in place to manage the impacts of COVID-19, ensuring we can continue to provide safe and reliable water and sewerage services to our customers, and to protect the health of our people and the communities we interact with.
Drinking water supply
First and foremost, your tap water remains safe to drink. There is no evidence that the COVID-19 virus is transmitted by drinking water. Our existing water treatment and disinfection processes using chlorine and chloramine are effective in deactivating viruses in water supplies.
We are also well prepared to ensure the ongoing safety and reliability of water supply. Our water treatment plants are secure, have back up power supplies and require few staff to operate them, with some able to be operated remotely.
Reliable services
For the health and well being of our people and the continuity of essential water and sewerage services, we have implemented a range of social distancing and additional hygiene measures. Along with our advanced technologies and existing remote operation procedures, these measures mean we’re well placed to continue providing you with reliable water and wastewater services.
It’s possible that some of our people might become unwell and we may need to strategically manage resources to focus on the most important core tasks. If this occurs, we’ll prioritise the basics like water and wastewater treatment, and work to overcome any temporary service interruptions such as repairing water main breaks or clearing sewer chokes and overflows, while deferring any non-essential activities.
More information
More information on drinking water quality, sewerage services and the operation of water and sewer infrastructure can be found in the Water Services Association of Australia’s (WSAA) COVID-19 fact sheet.
We’ll also continue to provide updates via our social media channels.
All health-related information can be found on the SA Health or Australian Department of Health websites. Please continue to follow the advice of health authorities and stay safe.
Contacting us
As always, we’ll be here if you need us.
If you have an urgent network fault to report, please call us on 1300 SA WATER (1300 729 283). Non-urgent network faults can also be reported on our website.
For all non-urgent enquiries, including account, meter, building, trade waste and connection queries, or to report a non-urgent network fault, we encourage you to contact us via the SA Water website using the relevant online form, or email us at customercare@sawater.com.au. The Customer Service desk on the ground floor of our Adelaide CBD headquarters is temporarily closed, so we encourage you to call, email or visit our website in the meantime.
If your enquiry isn’t urgent, consider if it can wait until the peak of this situation passes.
With social distancing measures applied – including in our Customer Care Centre – to protect the wellbeing of our people and continuity of our services, it’s possible that some of our call taking ability might reduce as this situation continues. If it does take us a little longer to answer your call, or respond to a job, please bear with us and know that we appreciate your patience as we all navigate this unprecedented situation together.
SA Water site tours
Based on advice from health authorities to cancel or limit participation in large public gatherings to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, all community, school and technical tours of our operational sites have been cancelled. More detailed information can be found on our Tours and Presentations webpage.
Support for customers
If you find yourself having difficulty paying your bill, please contact us as early as possible so we can help you get back in track. You can call us on 1300 SA WATER (1300 729 283) to talk about bill payment arrangements and extensions.
The South Australian Government also provides a range of concessions to people on low incomes, so check the concessions website to see if you are eligible for this assistance.
