Riverland's Black Water

Mr McMahon said the flow influx had de-oxygenated the water, which means micro-organisms die, creating the strong odour. "The best I can ascertain is there will be black water for another six weeks," he said.

If you look at the picture accompanying this article , then you will see it is a nice tea colour. It is on the nose though because of the dead micro organisms. It used to be quite common after heavy rains in Adelaide to get brown water coming out of the tap. Sometimes not even after rain. I don't actually know why we'd have a week or so of brown water and brown baths. It was always a bit of an adventure and you never drank it. Once the filtration plants were put in we have never had this problem. Renmark is obviously waiting for more effective water filtration plants and in the mean time the residents are having lovely brown, smelly  baths! Rain water is only an option if it didn't get contaminated with a lot of dust and the residents can get filtered water. The onus is on them to get it right, but the councils would probably need to offer some reassurances that properly filtered water to all houses is on the way. Town residents have filtered water. It's the ones on the banks of the Murray who should have pumps, but this family has a pump which is not quite tough enough for showering. Local advisors and the council can take a guiding role in  all of this because it isn't pleasant and people do the best they can with what they can afford.