Every day, Sydney Water supplies about 1.5 billion litres of the world’s best drinking water to over 5.3 million people in their homes and businesses across Greater Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the Illawarra.

Our water quality scientists do up to 70 different tests to ensure your drinking water is of the highest quality, which means that the water from your tap is clean and safe to drink.
However, do you know where your water comes from before it gets to your tap?

Sydney Water Head of Supply and Production, Ben Blayney, said we don’t think much about where water comes from, but it is quite the journey.
“We live in one of the largest cities on earth and our customers rely on rainfall being captured in our dams to supply all our drinking water,” Mr Blayney said.
“Dams are built across rivers to catch and store water for a more permanent and reliable water supply,” Mr Blayney said.

About 80 per cent of our drinking water supply comes from Warragamba Dam. The rest comes from other dams, the Hawkesbury–Nepean River and the Desalination Plant at Kurnell.
No matter the source, Sydney’s drinking water is filtered at one of our nine water filtration plants and desalination plant to ensure it’s of excellent quality, clean and safe to drink.
The Orchard Hills Water Filtration Plant, near Penrith, is just one example. It pumps out millions of litres of drinking water a day using water filtration and advanced control and automation to ensure we achieve a consistent, high standard that meets the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, which are some of the strictest in the world
“This means everyone across Sydney, the Blue Mountains, and the Illawarra has acess to clean, safe drinking water,” said Mr Blayney.

“We perform over 300,000 tests of our drinking supply a year and monitor our water quality at our filtration plants,” he said.
“Our team works around the clock to ensure we produce enough clean water for our customers to drink daily.”
The water flows through fine mesh screens to remove debris such as twigs and leaves. Then a solution is added to make smaller particles stick together so they can be removed easily.
From there, the water is filtered through tightly packed beds of sand and anthracite (coal).
The final steps are our experts carefully balance the pH of the water and add a small amount of chlorine to protect it from harmful pathogens.

From here, your drinking water moves through Sydney Waters’ thousands of kilometres of pipes to your home so you can cook, clean your teeth, wash your clothes, take a shower, or flush your toilet.
“Our team works around the clock to ensure we produce enough clean water for our customers to ue and drink daily.”

“The best thing about Sydney’s Water is that you don’t need to filter or boil the water before filling your glass, cup, or kettle. Instead, you can drink it straight from the tap,” said Mr Blayney.

Media Release by Sydney Water.