The Millennium Drought between 2001 and 2010 was the worst drought on record in south-east Australia.
In our region, streamflows dropped to record lows and many communities faced severe water restrictions. Since then, we have invested heavily on infrastructure to improve our communities’ resilience to drought.
This includes new and upgraded water treatment plants, new pipelines linking smaller towns to the supplies of larger towns and building new water storages. We have also increased water entitlements from the Murray River and gained access to more ground water in Wangaratta.
North East Water continues to respond to a changing climate with mitigation and adaptation actions which includes a pledge for net-zero carbon emissions by 2025.
Our communities are also playing their part, embracing water conservation since the Millennium Drought and now using somewhere between half and two-thirds of the water they used before that period.