Glen Innes will likely go to level four water restrictions this year, with output from the town's new bore not living up to hopes.
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The town has been pinning its hopes on the new $250,000 bore to ward off level four after spending its longest ever period on water restrictions.
But Glen Innes Severn council technical services engineer Scott Ross said results have been just middling, with the bore likely to pump out about 7.5 litres a second.
"Which is more or less what they got from the pilot bore but we were hoping for a bit more, because the pilot bore, in essence, because it was only a test bore had some limitations," he said.
"We kind of hoped that we would get more.
"That's yet to be confirmed by the pump testing."
The bore should be up and running within weeks, but there is no planned opening date yet.
The new bore would produce about 0.5 megalitres of water a day. Combined with a second bore at Red Range, bores would cover about half the town's average 1.8 megalitres a day consumption.
The rest would have to come from the town's water storage.
The town will be forced onto level four water restrictions in about six or seven weeks if nothing changes, according to Scott Ross.
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