A local water-carter has revealed the lengths to which people have been going to find supplies while they refuse to fall from the sky.
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Dave Henry Water Cartage's Kylie Bidgood said many were in "desperate situations", drivers often working into the small hours.
"We did a load out to Halls Creek [last week] in the middle of the night, because she had no water left for stock, and only had a tiny bit left in the bottom of the house tank and was going to give that to her stock," Ms Bidgood said.
"She'd lost three head [of cattle that week] just from lack of water."
There was a "quite elderly" gentleman who had been fetching water from his property's spring with a tractor bucket and using that as his domestic water tank.
"We had another lady in Hanging Rock who was coming down every day to a public toilet, and filling water containers for her and her children for drinking water," Ms Bidgood said.
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The business has done a couple of deliveries for Rural Aid and for less official sources as well: they've been getting two or three calls a week from people wanting to donate loads.
One of those is Umina Beach pet shop Paws on the Coast, which has been raising money to send water to farmers around Tamworth.
Jody McKinnon said she and business co-owner, her sister Donna, had grown "sick of watching the news and watching our water go down the drain when there's so many people suffering".
Wanting "to do something direct", they eventually hit on the idea of paying for water deliveries.
The first load, funded by them and their customers, will go out this week.
"Our customers are coming in and giving, say, $10 each," Ms McKinnon said.
"We won't miss $10 each, but it makes difference ... It's not going to fix the problem, but we can do something."
Ms Bidgood said she'd been tasked with selecting clients who could do with a helping hand, and they were not hard to find.
"People are losing stock; people are not showering or having showers twice a week," she said.
"Water is quite emotive as well: people are quite emotional about not having it, not getting it and not getting access to it.
"It's a human right - isn't it? - access to clean drinking water, and you wouldn't think in Australia we'd have that problem ...
"Everyone is frustrated and doesn't know how to help."
Carolyn Millet
Based at The Northern Daily Leader, Tamworth, and Namoi Valley Independent, Gunnedah. Covering general news and features on community, council, arts, business, health, education, entertainment and rural matters.
Based at The Northern Daily Leader, Tamworth, and Namoi Valley Independent, Gunnedah. Covering general news and features on community, council, arts, business, health, education, entertainment and rural matters.
