Access to safe drinking water is considered a basic human right but it's been in short supply in one of the driest and remotest parts of Australia. For decades Oodnadatta in South Australia's far north has been reliant on non-drinkable bore water which locals say caused health problems.
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00:00 Water is so precious. Water is life.
00:06 The human body needs water to drink.
00:10 It calls itself Australia's hottest and driest town.
00:18 But for a long time, cooling off in Oodnadatta came with danger.
00:23 You don't realise at all.
00:25 You get older and you realise how bad is the water.
00:30 We had a lot of other things there too.
00:32 Cheryl Stewart grew up on cattle stations bordering Oodnadatta
00:36 and regularly showered in bore water plumbed to her home.
00:40 The Yunginjurra woman says the salty water made her skin dry and itchy.
00:46 Yeah, I had sores everywhere.
00:49 Yeah.
00:51 Not just me, other kids had sores.
00:53 For decades, the South Australian government supplied Oodnadatta
00:58 with salty, non-drinkable bore water from the Great Artesian Basin.
01:03 Locals say that caused long-term suffering.
01:07 I still got scars here on my leg, you know, where I scraped and made it itchy
01:12 and made it really sore.
01:15 Look at this. It's like a rock.
01:19 Across town, Robert Aiken says he used bore water to cool his home.
01:24 The 61-year-old regularly had to clean his air conditioning unit
01:28 to get rid of salt from the water.
01:31 That's how we drink rainwater.
01:33 Some people buy a box of water from the shop.
01:36 The government warned locals that bore water previously supplied to their homes
01:41 could contain a parasite called Naegleria fowleri,
01:44 which, if inhaled, causes a rare but almost always deadly brain infection.
01:50 It crosses the blood-brain barrier,
01:52 which means that it actually gets into the nervous system.
01:55 I'm just so surprised nobody's taken it as a major health risk and taken it further.
02:01 The government says it's never found Naegleria fowleri in Oodnadatta's bore water supply,
02:06 but the risk was high enough for it to warn locals not to drink,
02:09 brush their teeth or get the bore water up their nose.
02:13 Public houses in the town have rainwater tanks,
02:15 but they haven't always been fitted with filters.
02:18 That leaves locals to choose between drinking questionable bore or rainwater
02:22 or buying expensive bottled water.
02:24 It's convenient for people like Adelaide and people in Adelaide and that.
02:29 They've got drinking water coming out of the tap, but not out in the bush.
02:35 Dean Walker used to live in Oodnadatta
02:37 and helped spearhead a campaign demanding clean drinking water for the town.
02:43 After decades without a safe supply, the government finally acted.
02:49 Oh, a little one. Do you want a bottle?
02:52 And you can fill up at the fountain, yeah?
02:54 It's just opened this $9 million desalination facility,
02:58 which will filter about 200,000 litres of safe drinking water
03:02 to homes and businesses in the town each day.
03:06 I feel real blessed, proud to accomplish something that took a little while.
03:12 It's been a long time and it's something new, isn't it?
03:16 You know, it's something that we've been wanting for so long.
03:19 While locals celebrate this win,
03:25 decades of warnings have made some a little wary of the new water supply.
03:30 Oh, I think they must want to see everybody else drinks it first
03:34 before, like the outsiders, come and have a drink of our water first before we drink it.
03:39 Despite the trepidation, this community knows change can be slow, but is possible.
03:48 It's also given them a voice, the younger generation,
03:52 to say, hey, if you want something, you've got to stand up and be made accountable.
03:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]