01
About the Utility
TasWater, the Tasmanian Water and Sewerage Corporation, was established in 2013 under state legislation and provides drinking water and sewerage services across Tasmania. It is jointly owned by Tasmania’s 29 local councils, with the State Government a minor shareholder, and its owners appoint an independent, skills-based Board. The Tasmanian Economic Regulator sets its maximum prices and service standards through multi-year price and service plans. The corporation is vertically integrated, running bulk supply from dams and reservoirs through distribution, and all sewerage services through to treatment and disposal. In February 2026 it supplied water to 476,206 people and employed 921 staff.
02
Water System
TasWater manages 307 dams and lagoons and supplied 69,749 ML to residential and non-residential customers in 2024-25. Drinking water quality is now a strength: the corporation achieved full microbiological compliance for the seventh consecutive year and issued no boil water alerts. Network condition is weaker: water main breaks fell to 34.1 per 100 km but still missed the minimum service standard, and five dams remain above the ANCOLD limit of tolerability for societal risk. Leakage is falling as district metering expands, with unaccounted-for water down to 21.9 per cent.
Water main breaks
TasWater water main breaks, bursts and leaks per 100 km of water main, FY19–FY25 (years ending 30 June)
Reported actuals from one performance table; the PSP4 minimum service standard for FY25 was 31.
Sources: AtkinsRéalis, Final Report on TasWater's capital expenditure, for the Office of the Tasmanian Economic Regulator.03
Wastewater System
Sewerage is where TasWater’s compliance burden is heaviest. It owns and operates 110 sewage treatment plants and reports that it runs 38 per cent of Australia’s water and sewage treatment plants for 2 per cent of the population served by major utilities. In 2025 it stated that only ten of those plants met all environmental licence conditions. Critically notifiable spills are falling but remain above the minimum standard, and sewer breaks and chokes stayed well above target. Its new price and service plan commits it to cutting high-risk plants from 18 to 9.
04
Investment & Priorities
Capital investment reached $371.7 million in 2024-25, TasWater’s largest ever, driven mainly by compliance works such as the Tamar Estuary River Health Action Plan and the Macquarie Point sewage treatment plant relocation, and funded increasingly by debt. For the next four-year plan TasWater proposed $1.7 billion of capital investment, but the Regulator’s final determination allowed $1.18 billion and average price increases of 5.7 per cent a year.
05
Sustainability & Resilience
Affordability is the counterweight to a heavier investment programme. Prices are set to rise faster than the capped increases of the previous plan, and 909 residential customers were enrolled in the TasWater Assist hardship program at the start of 2025-26. Environmental performance is improving on other fronts: reported greenhouse gas emissions fell over the latest year, and 99.7 per cent of biosolids from the larger treatment plants were beneficially reused.
06
Key Challenges
- Bringing sewage treatment plants into licence compliance while cutting high-risk plants from 18 to 9.
- Reducing water main breaks and leakage towards the minimum service standards through metering and renewals.
- Upgrading the five dams above the ANCOLD limit of tolerability, including Ridgeway and Pet dams.
- Delivering a larger capital programme within an allowance well below TasWater’s proposal.
- Maintaining affordability as prices rise and reliance on debt funding increases.