Work will begin soon to restore a permanent water supply to Wingham after the pipeline that had supplied the town since the 1960s was damaged during the floods.
Contractors working for MidCoast Council will begin drilling under the Manning River from early August as they install a new pipeline that will supply water to Wingham from Bootawa Water Treatment Plant.
Council's Director of Infrastructure and Engineering Services, Rob Scott, said the initial stages of the drilling would be noisy.
This noise is likely to be heard by residents on both sides of the Manning River, including Bootawa residents along Abbotts Road and Wingham residents along Bungay Road, Abbotts Falls Road and surrounding areas.
Mr Scott said the work was necessary to ensure the pipeline wouldn't be damaged during future floods.
"The reason the existing pipeline was damaged during the recent flood was that it was trenched into the bottom of the Manning River, which left it susceptible to flood debris and riverbank erosion," said Mr Scott.
"By installing the new pipeline under the river, we can prevent this from happening again but it does require us to ram a steel casing into the rock bed under the river in order to run the pipeline through it.
"Thankfully, this should only take around two weeks and then the noise levels should drop considerably as the work progresses."
The drilling will take around 10 weeks to complete, with work scheduled to take place between 6am and 6pm seven days a week.
Mr Scott said the entire project was expected to be completed by early December and he was looking forward to seeing Wingham transition from a temporary water supply back to a permanent one.
"There is a risk that if the current solution failed it would significantly impact water supply to customers in the entire northern part of our network, so it's important we move quickly with this project," he said.
"Water supply is an essential service and it's for this reason we've fast-tracked this work."
Residents along Abbotts Road and Bootawa Road are likely to experience increased truck movements from Wednesday 30 July as contractors begin mobilising the site. Residents along Bungay Road and Abbotts Falls Road may experience increased truck movements from Monday 4 August.
