Drinking water for almost 200,000 Australians has amounts of uranium, nitrates, fluoride, arsenic and E.coli above safe levels, according to the peak body for water suppliers.
A new Water Services Association of Australia report said that 115 locations of the country found unsafe drinking water in 115 locations, while hundreds more had water that didn't meet aesthetic standards, affecting a total of more than 600,000 people.
Remote Indigenous communities were found to be the most affected by unsafe drinking water.
Jackie Mahoney and Pam Corbett, who live in Alpurrurulam, 500 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs on the NT-Queensland border, say poor water quality causes a wide range of illnesses and problems.
People with sensitive skin were treated for scabies, but it wasn't scabies. The children's scalps were dry and itchy, and lots of calcium on the taps and clogged pipes caused problems. The community recently installed a filtration system that they said had helped improve water quality, but it did not remove everything, and many people still suffered health issues because they had to drink poor quality water for years.
Ms Corbett said before that it was worse.
Ms Corbett said she and her partner had approached governments, the Central Land Council and other funding bodies for a new water bore for the community, but progress had been slow.
I'm worried about our kids' future, the next generation. "We need new water soon," Mahoney said.
The Water Services Association of Australia report shows that 115 locations across remote Australia exceeded safe guidelines at least once in 2018 -- 19, while 408 locations did not meet aesthetic standards, affecting more than 600,000 people.
More than 40 per cent of the surveyed locations were remote Indigenous communities, the report said.
The number of locations and breaches of the guidelines could be higher because there wasn't enough testing done, according to Adam Lovell, association executive director.
He said there was hardly any data to understand what the water quality is like.
The highest level of elements, like uranium or arsenic, could result in long-term chronic health problems, but the most common risk was E.coli, said Lovell.
If a water supply is not being properly disinfected, there'll be gastrointestinal problems in the house, he said.
The chemical impacts build up and build up and build up over the long term, and are the chronic impacts that are much harder to see immediately and harder to treat over the long term. In Australia's major cities, hundreds of water samples were taken a day, testing for microbial contaminants like E.coli and chemicals.
Report author Eric Vanweydeveld said too many government departments and other organisations were involved in service provision for remote communities, which led to blame shifting and inaction.
If there is a leak in the street, and you are a member of a remote community, try to understand who do I need to talk to to fix this leak? He said that you will deal with probably seven or 10 different departments.
The report recommends that the federal government spend $30 million to establish a national water monitoring program.
Steven Porter, a Northern Territory Power and Water Corporation employee, said the Central Land Council had been working with the National Indigenous Affairs Association to bring two new bores online, but there was still a $1 million shortfall.
He said that it's possible to access better sources of water and improve the quality of water for the local community.