Residents in the Newtown Rd-Rawlinson St area of Bega and surrounding streets complained of intensely brown water flowing out of their taps, placing calls to the council and taking to social media to vent frustration.

At 3pm Wednesday, the BVSC posted on its Facebook page an update on pipe maintenance works in Bega, noting some properties in the area would receive no water, or reduced pressure, until around 5pm while work took place.

However, several residents complained there had been no notice prior to that afternoon statement.

Meanwhile, residents (including this reporter) continued to see brown water until closer to 7pm.

Paula Mathewson said St Patrick's Primary School had been left without water and was not advised to prepare for this beforehand.

“Not cool on a warm day!” she wrote. “There's no school in a week, couldn't it have waited until then?”

Caiti Hooper said it shows up for her “very regularly” and it was “starting to really get past a joke”.

“And for council to say this water is still safe to drink...no way I'm letting my children drink that!”

Others complained of discoloured bathwater for their children, or potential for sickness from drinking water from their tap.

The BVSC is nearing completion of a cleaning program of the Bega-Tathra water supply mains using a process known as “ice-pigging”.

“Ice-pigging” began in early November in works said to remove accumulation of sediment using an ice slurry pumped through the water mains (BDN, 3/11).

The BVSC said on Thursday this work was scheduled to be completed by Friday, December 4. However, it said some valves were found to be not operating as planned on Wednesday, interrupting service and allowing more sediment through than usual.

“Follow-up flushing has been undertaken to assist with a return to good water quality,” the BVSC said in a statement released late Thursday.

“The very dirty water that some customers experienced was the accumulated sediment from the mains dislodged by the ice slurry.

“The predominant source of the discolouration is iron from the Bega River source water and corrosion of water main fittings.

“The issue is not a health concern, rather an aesthetic one related to discolouration.”