Water

Water efficient products

In your home, the appliances and fixtures that use the most water will usually be the washing machine, dishwasher, shower and toilet. Find out what water efficient products are available to you to help you save water and money.  

How you use appliances can make a big difference on your water use too. Only use washing machines and dishwashers when you have a full load, take short showers (three to four minutes) and flush the toilet only when necessary.

To find out more about how you can save water in your home read the Water Saving Fact Sheet(PDF, 173KB).

Water Retailers

Your local water retailer can offer a wide range of assistance to your home, business or community. 

Yarra Valley Water offers the below services, visit https://www.yvw.com.au/ for more information

• Financial help,
• Watercare 
• Community Water Efficiency Program

Greater Western Water (formally City West Water and Western Water) offers the below services, visit https://www.westernwater.com.au/ for more information

• Community Sponsorships,
• Community Education 
• Assistance programs to provide utility bill relief, free plumbing and rebates

Community Water Rebate Program

The Community Water Rebate Program is a targeted water rebate program to assist water corporations’ vulnerable and hardship customers. The program includes a range of products and services to improve water efficiency in households. For more information about the Community Water Rebate Program, contact your local water corporation.

Hume Integrated Water Management Plan 2020-2025

Hume’s Integrated Water Management Plan 2020-2025(PDF, 12MB), adopted in March 2020, outline Council’s approach to key and emerging issues in the water industry and beyond including:

• Responding to current climate change impacts and the latest future projections, especially the urban heat island effect and impacts on open space management and the stormwater system.
• Development of legislation and policy direction at the State Government level, particularly the Integrated Water Management Framework for Victoria (Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, 2017) and the Healthy Waterways Strategy (Melbourne Water, 2017).
• The identified need to protect and enhance community and environmental assets including streetscapes, waterways, native habitat and recreational opportunities.
• Meeting Council’s increased water demand as urbanised areas increase and climate change impacts are experienced.

Rainwater Tanks

Rainwater tanks have been installed at over 60 Council facilities in order to harvest water for toilet flushing and irrigation. This reduces the amount of potable (drinking) water that is flushed down the toilet. Large capacity tanks are in place at Council's Broadmeadows offices, Sunbury Aquatic and Leisure Centre, Craigieburn Sports Stadium and Sunbury Depot.

Alternative Water Sources at Sports Grounds

• Out of a total of 52 irrigated sports fields, 21 are now irrigated with alternative water sources rather than the drinking water supply.
• Recycled water is supplied to 11 ovals in Sunbury and two in Craigieburn.
• Stormwater is harvested to irrigate two ovals in Greenvale and two in Roxburgh Park.
• Two ovals at Kalkallo are irrigated with groundwater.

Water Efficient Sports Grounds

Council is undertaking a program to convert all sports grounds with drought tolerant, warm season grasses. The warm season turf conversion program is converting four ovals per year to warm season grass. Once established, these fields typically require 30 to 40 per cent less water than the traditional cool season grassed fields.

Golf Courses

Craigieburn Golf Course and Goonawarra Golf Course in Sunbury are both connected to recycled water. Craigieburn Golf Course also upgraded to a new and efficient irrigation system. 

What is stormwater?

Stormwater is rainfall runoff from impervious surfaces in urban areas, for example, roads, pavements, and roofs. This water makes its way along kerbside drains and from down pipes into the stormwater drainage network. From here, the water flows, generally untreated, to the nearest waterway. Water from roads can contain many pollutants including litter, silt and sediments, oils and heavy metals. This pollution has major impacts on the environment and on our rivers and creeks. Only rainfall should enter the stormwater system – no chemicals or other materials should be poured into stormwater drains.

Stormwater management

Regular street sweeping prevents hundreds of tonnes of litter from entering waterways through stormwater drains every year. In one year alone, over 2,500 tonnes of rubbish was removed from Hume's streets. Council also manages more than 50 wetlands and operates 100 gross pollutant traps which remove litter, as well as sediments and nutrients, from stormwater flows before they enter creek and river systems. Wetlands also help slow the flow of water before entering waterways and create habitat for frogs, birds and fish.

Monitoring and enforcement of Planning Scheme and Local Laws

Council regularly audits new residential and industrial estate development, and building sites to ensure that appropriate measures are put in place to prevent mud, silt and construction materials washing off-site and into stormwater drains. Fines can be issued to builders and developers who fail to prevent pollutants from entering stormwater drains and polluting waterways.

New subdivisions are required to meet stormwater management standards under the Hume Planning Scheme. The planning scheme requires all new subdivisions and industrial developments to manage stormwater run-off in order to protect water quality and habitat values in receiving waterways. Information about industrial stormwater management can be found in the Industrial Stormwater Code of Practice.(PDF, 704KB)

Greening Program

Council's Community Greening Program works with the Hume community on tree planting activities to restore indigenous plant communities to local reserves, including creeks. Revegetation helps to prevent bank erosion and therefore reduce pollution from sediment runoff into waterways.

Why not come and join us for a planting day? It's a great way of doing your bit to help protect Hume's environment, meeting new people and getting some fresh air and exercise!

For more information, subscribe to our Live Green publications.

Hume City Council works with water authorities to help manage our wetlands and lakes. This includes alerting the community to blue-green algae, managing revegetation and plantlife and clearing litter.

Blue-green algae

Blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria) is a naturally occurring organism present in bodies of water. 

Usually, you can't notice it, because the individual cells are very small and are normally not visible. However, under certain conditions, numbers can increase rapidly and blooms become easily visible across the water surface. These blooms are seasonal and a natural component of many waterways in Victoria. 

Blue-green algae blooms occur because of a combination of the following: 

• lots of nutrients in the water (usually a combination of naturally occurring nutrients and some that wash in with stormwater)
• low inflows (i.e. if it doesn't rain for a while)
• warm weather conditions.  
  
  

Algal blooms are unpleasant, but they are usually not dangerous. Large amounts of blue-green algae can cause skin irritation or illnesses for people and pets that come into contact with them, but this depends on how much algae there is in the water. Blue-green algae is monitored regularly by water authorities and Council will put up signage to notify the community if a bloom occurs. 

It is not possible to prevent, treat or clean up algal blooms, but they will naturally dissipate with rain and cooler weather.

Plantlife and weeds

We often receive requests to clean up plantlife in our wetlands and lakes. However, these plants (often mistaken for weeds) have an important role to play. 

Plants in and around our waterways help filter nutrients and pollutants (which can reduce the severity of algal blooms), provide habitat for wildlife and reduce erosion (which makes for clearer water). That is why revegetation programs in these areas are so important. 

Some of the native plants you might see in our waterways include:

• Poa labillardierei (Common Tussock Grass)
• Carex appressa (Tall Sedge)
• Triglochin procerum (Water Ribbons)
• Phragmites australis (Common Reed)
• Wooly Tea Tree.

Council holds regular community planting days where likeminded community members can come together to assist with revegetation. Subscribe to Live Green News to stay in the loop about upcoming planting events.

Litter

Council conducts regular clean-ups of popular waterside areas, such as Highlands Lake. However, the best way to prevent litter around our waterways is to ensure rubbish is properly disposed of.

We encourage residents to put rubbish in the bin or take it home with them.

Don’t feed the birds

Feeding the ducks might be popular tradition, but it’s unhealthy for the birds and for our local environment. Download the Please Don’t Feed the Ducks fact sheet for more information.