Northern councils earned $7.9 million from TasWater in 2015.

Just over 50 per cent of the revenue was earned by Launceston, who has a 14 per cent share in TasWater with more than $4 million.

This was a $548,000 jump on income the year before.

TasWater last week announced that it would stop $150 million in payments to councils over 10 years to fund a $1.5 billion capital works program.

This would include freezing annual distributions to councils at $20 million.

Dividend payments will also be halved to less than $10 million for seven years from July 2018.

This is in contrast to the rise in dividend payments to most Northern councils between 2014 and 2015.

As well as dealing with a cut in TasWater income, Launceston will now have to pay $1.5 million to the corporation to maintain the city’s stormwater assets.

This is one-quarter of the amount being pursued by TasWater before independent arbitration found in the council’s favour.

City of Launceston general manager Robert Dobrzynski said the council understood that the state’s water quality issues needed to be addressed.

“We expect the impacts from the TasWater decision to be in the order of $10 million over ten years,” he said.

"The council has some time to review our forward projections before these changes come into force and we will determine the best way to adapt to the changes, geared towards the minimal impact on ratepayers.

"We accept that it is reasonable for TasWater to make use of its revenues and operating profits to fund these works.

"TasWater was formed to address these very issues.”

Local Government Association of Tasmania president Doug Chipman said consequences from TasWater’s distribution cuts would not hit any one council harder than another.

He said while bigger councils had larger shares and resultant dividends, they also had larger operating budgets than the smaller councils.

Northern Midlands Council, with a 2.5 per cent stake in TasWater, received $517,610 in dividends in 2015, up from $297,477 in 2014.

This formed part of $702,000 in total income received from the water body.

Meander Valley received $834,001 in total in 2015, George Town received $341,118, Dorset received $310,000, and Flinders Island received received $39,794.

Break O’Day’s income increased from $387,263 in 2014 to $623,162 in 2015.

In contrast, West Tamar’s income fell from $1.3 million to $983,999 in 2015 due to a drop in dividend payments.

North-West councils earned $6.7 million from TasWater in 2015.

Devonport earned $1.7 million last year and Burnie $1.2 million – about $250,000 more than it did in 2014.