The Katherine Times was told today by a source within Power and Water the bore water is used year round to “shandy” Katherine River water.

“It is not just used at the end of the dry season like they said, we use it all the year around, you’re drinking water from it today.”

NT Government officials responded late to our calls today confirming the claim.

“It’s no secret,” one official said.

They said the bulk of the water, 70 to 90 per cent of the town’s tap water, is supplied from the Katherine River, which they also confirmed this week had a low level of PFAS contamination.

But water is still being supplied from the town’s treatment plant, which cannot remove the suspect chemicals, from two bores which have been found to be contaminated at least five times the recommended “tolerable daily intake” levels.

One long-time resident, who did not want to be named, has called on the Government to shut down the bores straight away.

Katherine MP Sandra Nelson said she did not want to comment on the story.

Federal health agencies this week reduced the maximum allowable limits for PFAS contamination of water from 0.5 micrograms per litre to 0.07 sending alarm bells through the community.

PFAS are a family of chemicals contained in firefighting foams used at Tindal RAAF Base between 1988 and 2004.

Katherine’s water bores have been tested at 0.33 which prompted the NT Government to hold a press conference on Monday to say it was increasing water testing at Katherine and was “having conversations” with the Department of Defence on what to do when the town’s total reliance is on the bores for several days of the year.

Ms Nelson provided an email comment saying bore reliance might be more than days.

“Every release and/or verbal communication I've received they have always stated that 100 per cent reliance on bore water can be for a day, several days or several weeks but historically it has never been longer than 3 weeks and that reliance up to 3 weeks has been very minimal over the last several years,” Ms Nelson said.

In Monday’s media release, Health Minister Natasha Fyles said: “In Katherine, Power and Water sources between 70 per cent to 90 per cent of its drinking water from the Katherine River and blends it with groundwater from two production bores.

“There may be times during the first rains of the wet season that bacteria levels peak in the Katherine River and it becomes highly turbid and reliance on bore water increases. Monitoring will continue throughout the year.”

What the government did not implicitly say is that the bores are supplying water to Katherine today, even though the blend with the river water brings the contamination down to “acceptable” limits.

The NT Health Department insists Katherine’s water is still safe to drink.

The latest figures provided to Katherine Times shows the bore/river blend is producing contamination numbers of about 0.052.

Recent figures published on Power and Water Corporation’s website are substantially the same of those provided in November.

A corporation spokeswoman said Katherine residents could find out more about the use of the bores and the river by attending next week’s Department of Defence information sessions at the Katherine Country Club on Wednesday.

The Katherine Times, which was not invited to Monday’s press conference in Darwin, has sent the Health Department a series of questions on the safety of the water and its use in Katherine.

There has not been any response at the time of publishing this update.