All is well in the East Coast town of Scamander.
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The town’s drinking water supply was officially approved on Tuesday, spelling the end of a six-month permanent boil water alert and allowing residents to drink directly from the tap for the first time in 10 years.
Pelican Sands Scamander owner Maureen Gill said she had taken great joy in removing 'boil water' signs from rooms in the resort.
“It's the talk of the community at the moment and everyones going ‘about time, isn't it fabulous?’,” Mrs Gill said.
“It’s been a long time coming and we've had to answer some very curly questions from guests that have come over the time to explain what's wrong with the water.
“It’s also significant for the whole East Coast because now Scamander fits much better into the clean, green image that Tourism Tasmania is trying to project - and it certainly wasn’t portraying a clean green image when we had water we had to boil before use.”
RELATED: Water alert concerns
Mrs Gill said it was important to pay credit to TasWater for its efforts in lifting the alert.
"The people that we met with when they had a community forum here a few months back were very straightforward, they were very honest, they had schematic drawings and they had plans.
“The critical timeframe for us was that it happened before the high season because we've been buying bottled water for our guests.”
Break O'Day mayor Mick Tucker said the news of clean water had come as a huge relief for Scamander and the Break O’Day community.
“I think it’s a very good thing for the community of Scamander to be able to drink the water with confidence that it now meets the strictest Australian health standards,” Cr Tucker said.
Cr Tucker said he had disagreed with reports that the permanent boil water alert had negatively affected tourism in the region.
“I'd really like to make it very clear that if there has been any loss in the last six months since the temporary (alert) went to permanent, it would be very hard to justify in anybody’s language how that may have affected tourism because of all the natural weather events that have had a major impact in Tasmania and the mainland in general.”
