Imagine living in a first-world country and being too frightened to drink tap water.
This is the reality for Indigenous residents in the north-west New South Wales town of Walgett, a community that has been living off emergency bore water for roughly five years.
"We can't drink the water out the tap," Aboriginal mum Lorraine Murray told 7.30.
"It's filth. It stinks."
A water security survey of 250 First Nations people living in Walgett found 44 per cent reported being worried about getting safe drinking water — a higher rate of water insecurity than in Bangladesh and similar to First Nations communities in Canada.
After years of drought and water shortages, Walgett relies on water pumped from the Great Artesian Basin, an ancient underground aquifer.
Walgett's bore water has a slimier feel, and is a slightly salty and more bitter taste than other tap water because the Great Artesian Basin water contains different dissolved salts.
"It's like when you've got moisturiser on your hands, [it's] slippery," Ms Murray explained.
"It makes me so angry with the people that's in control of the water."
The NSW Minister for Water Rose Jackson told 7.30 in a statement: "Some assistance is now being provided currently by the New South Wales government to Walgett Shire Council to support them to have the necessary infrastructure and technical expertise to resolve these challenges."
While the minister said she was concerned, she links Walgett's water insecurity to "overall declining river health — exacerbated by the impacts of droughts and flooding events", and that the New South Wales government is committed to the full implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
Health risks
It's not just taste and aesthetic issues worrying Walgett residents.
Previous tests of the drinking water in Walgett have shown the sodium levels exceed Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.
There are no health standards for safe sodium levels in the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines — only palatability guidelines — but experts say high sodium levels can be a health risk for people with chronic illnesses.
The University of New South Wales' water research lab has analysed official government test results provided to them of Walgett's bore water over a four-year period up until July last year.
"The salt levels that are analysed are about 15 times higher than what's recommended for people with kidney failure and renal problems," the water research lab's Dr Martin Andersen told the ABC's 7.30.
Dr Andersen also added that people with diabetes and heart issues should avoid drinking salty water for extended periods.
"For a healthy adult person, it's probably okay to drink," he said.
"But if you do have pre-existing medical conditions in terms of high blood pressure or kidney failure, you shouldn't be drinking those levels of salt in your drinking water."
For more than five years, the Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service, the Dharriwaa Elders Group and some residents have expressed concerns about the potential effect on community health.
Many First Nations people in Walgett suffer from chronic illnesses and are on salt-reduced diets.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the 2021 Census shows a third of residents living with renal, heart and/or diabetes in Walgett are Indigenous, despite First Nations people making up 21 per cent of the Local Government Area's population.
'He can die from it'
Ms Murray's 7-year-old son Dale lives with a kidney condition called nephrotic syndrome. If he doesn't get better, he could need a kidney transplant.
The mum of 10 has endured traumatic nights dealing with her little boy's illness.
"When Dale has relapses, he cannot see out of his eyes; his belly is like a balloon," she described of an ordeal where Dale had to be airlifted to a Sydney hospital.
"It's like he's got a belly on his back, everything just swells. His one leg would be the size of my two legs."
Dale is on a doctor-ordered reduced-salt diet, Lorraine said, adding that weekly grocery shops including special salt-reduced items could peak at $900.
"They [doctors] told me Dale can't drink bore water," Ms Murray said.
"There's more sodium than the normal water. So Dale is not allowed to drink tap water at all. So he's got to drink water from the shops."
While many of us take access to clean drinking water at the turn of a tap for granted, Lorraine spends around $50 a week on bottled water to drink, wash food and cook with.
"It is expensive but we got no choice," Ms Murray said.
"The condition Dale's got, he can die from it."
Running out of money, water, and patience
Walgett's community survey questions were taken from the Household Water Security Index Scale (HWISE), a tool created by Northwestern University anthropologist Sera Young to quantify global water insecurity.
Based on the scale, the findings were compared to other communities both domestically and globally for water and food security.
One of the residents surveyed was Gamilaraay woman Mary Kennedy, who needs to avoid salty food and drink to keep her blood pressure in check.
"I've got a lot of chronic issues and diabetes," Ms Kennedy said.
"My heart problems too and liver problems."
Due to concerns about water quality, four-in-five Indigenous Walgett residents had to rely on bought or donated bottled water in the past year.
Walgett is located about 700 kilometres from Sydney, so the town's fresh produce can be more expensive than large regional centres due to transport costs.
Some fortnights, Ms Kennedy worries she will run out of money and run out of bottled drinking water.
"I would never drink it [bore water]; I can't chance it because of my health conditions," she said.
"Being on disability pension, I worry from one fortnight to the next because I'm buying high [cost] food … and on top of that I worry about the water."
Going to bed thirsty
Gamilaraay woman Trish Tonkin was trained to collect the data for Walgett's community water survey, which asked questions ranging from "Did you ever worry about not having enough food or water to meet your needs?" to "Did you ever have to go to bed hungry/thirsty?"
"Another thing we heard from people in the survey [was] that they were going to bed thirsty," said Ms Tonkin, who grew up on the banks of the Namoi River.
"It's shocking to even think that people are still going hungry and thirsty."
More than a third of Aboriginal Walgett residents have gone to bed thirsty at least one month in the past year, according to the survey.
"This day and age it shouldn't be happening," Ms Tonkin said.
She lists fear of what's potentially in the bore water and a distrust in authorities as possible reasons Indigenous Walgett residents experience water insecurity so severely.
'We want action now'
A mobile desalination facility, known as the Reverse Osmosis machine, was brought to Walgett in May 2020 in response to community concerns about the extremely salty bore water, despite assurances from health authorities it was safe to drink.
The machine was meant to remove the high levels of sodium from Walgett's bore water but stopped operating after several months due to logistical and waste issues.
"They ran out of storage space for the reject water," Dr Martin Andersen explained.
"The salty water that they're getting rid of, they put it into storage ponds and those pumps ran full and they had to turn the plant off again."
Despite recent rainfall, the community also hasn't been able to use river water to supply the town with drinking water — on April 6, WaterNSW issued an amber alert for blue-green algae in the Namoi River at Walgett.
"Due to algae composition, stock and domestic users should consider alternate water sources," the report stated.
The ABC's 7.30 sought interviews with Walgett Shire Council mayor, its urban manager and its general manager and sent detailed questions but did not receive a response.
In a statement, NSW Health told the ABC's 7.30 it is supporting Walgett Shire Council to return to river water as quickly as possible and that Walgett's bore water is safe according to the National Health and Medical Research Council Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.
"The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines have not established a health guideline value [limit] for sodium," the department said.
"The [sodium] contribution from water is less than from food. However, excessive sodium intake, usually from food, may be a risk for some people's health. Most of the sodium taken into people's bodies comes from salt in the food we eat."
"We're seeing the river becoming increasingly unreliable in terms of quantities," Dr Andersen said.
"[What] we're seeing is a decrease in the water quality as well. When there is water in the river, it has lots of algae growing in it and lots of turbidity, and that also poses a lot of complications for water treatment, for drinking water."
Walgett residents are calling for a multi-agency independent task force to investigate and tackle water insecurity — and they want local Aboriginal organisations and expert voices included.
"We want action now," Ms Tonkin said.
"Not tomorrow. Not the next day. We need it now."
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