Water Corporation: WA’s sewerge system left in a perilous state after years of neglect from Watercorp

Water Corporation is struggling to provide a basic level of service to customers amid a maintenance backlog of at least five years and urgent repairs including rusted and decaying sewerage and lead leaking into water pipes. Hundreds of pages of infrastructure reports, obtained by The West Australian and dating back to 2023, have exposed the shambolic condition of wastewater and mains supply infrastructure across the State and the lengths that the publicly-owned utility is going to in an effort to keep services online. The State-owned utility won’t confirm exactly how many of its assets are failing and overdue for replacement, or how much it’s expected to cost. One of the more serious failures occurred in August 2021, when a pressurised sewer main on Armagh Street in Victoria Park ruptured and began leaking human waste. The failure was caused by corrosion to the pipe’s exterior. As a temporary fix, maintenance staff covered the area with coal tar and wrapped the section of pipe in a bandage while a permanent solution was planned. More than a year later, an inspection which included ultrasonic testing, was carried out to determine the condition of the pipe and determine repairs. “Asset was live and in poor condition,” the report stated. “External coating heavily perished and near non-existent. Reducer is in extremely poor condition with severe signs of deterioration. “Majority of bolts in inoperable condition on both manhole and scour valve.” The corrosion was so severe in one large section of the pipe that maintenance workers were unable to conduct the ultrasonic testing testing “due to the risk of failure” from preparing the site. Photos of the pressurised sewer main show the bolts securing the section of piping almost completely rusted away, with some sections flaking from corrosion. Despite the condition of the asset, a follow-up report about a fortnight later shows that maintenance crews welded a piece of steel to cover over the leak from August 2021. “The tested area within the defect zone ranged from 0.0 to 5.1mm,” the report stated. “It was identified that there was sufficient steel for welding repairs to be conducted.” Water Corporation wouldn’t say whether the Armagh Street assets has since been replaced. It’s far from an isolated example, with countless water infrastructure failures detailed throughout the reports, including: Water Corporation in 2023 conducted an assessment into the extent of repair and replacement works required across the network and its level of service to customers. “Our asset management strategy places a limit of three leaks and breaks in a 12-month period as our Level of Service (LoS) limit,” the document states. “Detailed analysis and modelling are showing a growing trend in customers who we are failing to provide this minimum level of service to. “Whilst new LoS failures is trending upwards, repeat level of service failures are growing at an accelerated rate — 20-25 per cent of the backlog of unmitigated LoS failures fail again in a given year.” At the time, the utility provider had a five-year backlog of more than 152km of piping where thousands of customers weren’t receiving the basic level of service. In one example, the report noted “two streets that have resulted in Ministerial inquiries as well as the supply to Graylands Hospital which has failed 14 times on record, with six outages in the past two years”. It found that annual expenditure on replacing infrastructure needed to increase significantly. “The five-year backlog, including replaced mains comes to $205.1 million, averaging $41m per year and is only expected to grow over time,” it stated. “As this is the current rate the backlog is increasing, this is only expected to maintain the current backlog. It is expected the backlog will gradually grow over time as the network further deteriorates. “The requested funding is expected to stabilise the annual LoS failures around 5000 customers per year from FY28, with a gradual increase over time.” Asked by The West Australian for an explanation, Water Corporation refused to divulge the current state of maintenance backlogs and the costs to taxpayers to replace the infrastructure. It also would not reveal the level of service failures or whether Grayland Hospital was still experiencing frequent water supply issues. Instead a spokesperson pointed to the $100m it was spending this financial year to renew ageing infrastructure in the Perth and Peel regions. “This is among our largest ever annual renewals spends,” the spokesperson said. “This work includes a $79.9m program to renew ageing water and wastewater pipelines, renewing more than 30km of water reticulation main across six Perth metro local government areas, worth $40.4m.” A further $100m was planned to go towards replacing 44km of water pipeline until 2031. The spokesperson said in the current 2025-26 financial year, $46m had been allocated to preventative maintenance — a 17 per cent increase on 2024-25. “We work hard to maintain these networks to ensure they continue to reliably service the needs of our growing state, in the face of climate change, population growth and increasing demand,” they said. Water Minister Don Punch defended the Cook Government’s investment on infrastructure renewal and denied the issues were down to a lack of funding. “I’m satisfied our government is making strong, responsible investments to secure WA’s water future by building climate resilient sources like desalination, while renewing and maintaining critical infrastructure,” he said. “These investments ensure our water services remain reliable as WA continues to grow and adapt to climate change.” Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas disagreed and blamed the government for having nine years of wrong priorities. “Roger Cook and his Government are failing to do the basics right. How can it be that in the wealthiest State in the nation, our water supply, wastewater and sewerage system is literally falling apart,” he said. “Why can Roger Cook find money for racetracks and movie studios but not the funding for this vital maintenance work?” Water Corporation still hasn’t revealed when it plans to conduct urgent repairs on Narrows Bridge where hundreds of pipe hangers which are close to 20 years past their useful life and in urgent need of replacing. Corrosion of the hangers was first identified in 2018, leading to a failure in 2023 which caused widespread disruption to traffic. “Based on the drone inspection findings, it appears that 95 per cent of hangers require repairs within five years and 50 per cent within three years,” a 2024 inspection report stated. “The fact that hangers have passed their estimated 50-year economic service life, it is recommended to further investigate the hangers’ condition to fine-tune the timing of hanger maintenance and replacement.” Despite the warnings of a potential catastrophic failure, no timeline has been set for when the hangers will be replaced, with further assessments to be conducted throughout this year.