Water meter readings for Katherine homes and businesses began last Monday to discover who has water leaks. 

The first week of the NT Government leak check found 184 homes with potential problems.

The leak checkers are part of the government’s response to Katherine’s drinking water contamination crisis.

Power and Water leak check team leader Wayne Carmichael said it takes about five minutes to check for a leak and input the data into the system.

“We are here to help Katherine help themselves manage their water and we have found people to be very receptive,” Mr Carmichael said. 

“800 millilitres per minute is considered normal household usage, so if the dial reads less than that, there is thought to be a leak. 

“If we think there is a leak we advise them to do their own check and not just take our word for it. If they agree that they have a leak they Living Water Smart and let them know you have a leak,” he said. 

“You are able to get a $200 rebate, which is a rebate for one hour’s work, so if the plumber can find the leak and fix in in an hour, Power and Water will pay for it.”

“We aim for each one of us to do 40 checks per day,” Mr Carmichael said. 

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“We have found the homes in Katherine have varying accessibility, some have really high fences, there are a lot of roaming dogs. Katherine people seem to have a lot of guard dogs.

“A lot more dogs are trained to attack here, Michael has a different hat to the rest of us because someone’s dog took it off his head.”

Mr Carmichael said the team only enters properties with the owner’s permission. 

“If there is a fence we do not climb it, we have an extendable mirror which we can use to check the meters without having to enter someone’s property,” he said. 

“Most of the meters are located right at the front of people’s yards. 

“About 75 per cent of the 2075 properties have been checked, we just have 705 to go before we head back to Darwin on Friday. But we are on target,” Mr Carmichael said. 

The checkers have found the average leak detected in Katherine is 177,000 litres annually.

“We found two very big leaks, one at a place equated to about $36,000 over a year, but that was due to a broken pipe which had already been reported,” Mr Carmichael said,

“Another was a $7000 a year leak which was at an abandoned house in east side.”

Water restrictions began in Katherine on Monday to further conserve water and take a load off the town’s water treatment plant before the peak water use periods of September and October.

There are fears the plant will not be able to cope with the increased use of contaminated bore water when the river levels are low and become turbid.

The total leaked water found in Katherine so far is 32.6 million litres per year or almost 22 Katherine town pools