DEECA

About the area

  • Coliban Water provides water and wastewater services to about 186,000 people in 49 towns across central and northern Victoria.
  • Coliban Water also supplies about 1,240 rural licence holders from 500 km of open channels in the Coliban rural water supply system extending from Malmsbury to Bendigo, and to Raywood and surrounding areas.
  • Coliban Water's service area is within parts of the Campaspe, Loddon, Murray, Goulburn and Wimmera basins. It operates two common water supply systems: the Goldfields Superpipe incorporating the Eppalock Pipeline, which it jointly operates with Central Highlands Water; and the Coliban Main Channel.
  • Coliban Water operates 26 urban water supply systems including 2 separate groundwater systems (Elmore and Trentham) and 10 rural subsystems.
  • More information on the water corporation can be found at Coliban WaterExternal Link .

2021-22 overview

Urban deliveries

20,236 ML of urban residential and non-residential deliveries were made in 2021-22, similar to the previous year (19,575 ML in 2020-21).

Rural deliveries

3,104 ML of rural deliveries were made in common and rural systems in 2021-22, similar to the previous year (3,072 ML in 2020-21).

Passed to other systems

21,966 ML was passed to other systems, similar to the previous year (22,286 ML in 2020-21).

Wastewater recycled at treatment plants

21% of wastewater was recycled (2,149 ML of 10,459 ML).

Water deliveries

Urban systems

Coliban Water operates 26 urban water supply systems, including 2 sourced from groundwater. Water is sourced from the CampaspeExternal Link , GoulburnExternal Link , LoddonExternal Link , MurrayExternal Link and WimmeraExternal Link basins.

Table 1: Urban system water balance, Coliban Water

Rural systems

Coliban Water operates 10 rural supply systems and sources water from the CampaspeExternal Link basin.

Table 2: Rural system water balance, Coliban Water

Common systems

Coliban Water operates two common supply systems:

  • the Goldfields Superpipe – this pipeline transfers water from the Waranga Western Channel ( GoulburnExternal Link basin) and from Lake Eppalock ( CampaspeExternal Link basin) for use in the Coliban Water supply system and to supply water to Central Highlands Water’s Ballarat system.
  • the Coliban Main Channel – this channel conveys water from the Coliban storages (Upper Coliban, Lauriston and Malmsbury reservoirs) to supply rural subsystems and the Coliban North and Coliban South urban water supply systems.

Table 3: Common system water balance, Coliban Water

Recycled water

Water recycled at wastewater treatment plants can be used to supplement water available in river basins. Table 4 below lists the wastewater treatment plants managed by Coliban Water. Water discharged to the environment from treatment plants is included as an inflow to the water balance for each of the river basins.

The Essential Services Commission made some changes to recycled water data categories in 2021-22, so we have not included a comparison to 2020-21 in the table below. Click here to download the data for 2020-21External Link .

More information can be found in How we account for water supplyExternal Link .

Table 4: Treated wastewater produced and recycled, Coliban Water