Readers from across the city had flooded our Facebook page to share their experiences with Goulburn’s water quality.

At time of writing, our Facebook post had received more than 70 comments from residents, many with photographic evidence of the brown-tinged water.

“Ours has been brown and smells strongly lately. I’ve switched to buying our drinking water because it literally tastes like dirt,” one reader wrote.

“We filled the bath for our daughter last night and it was so brown and dirty we pulled the plug out and chose not to bath her at all! It was disgusting!” another exclaimed.

Some readers told us that when they contacted the council about the discoloured water, their advice was to run the tap until it ran clear. This proved a short-term fix; the brown would return.

For residents right across the city to be experiencing such discolouration, it seemed quite clear to us that there was something in the water.

Having initially denied there was an issue with water quality, it appeared the council had changed their minds after general manager Warwick Bennett effectively accused us of concocting the story.

“We question why people are ringing the Goulburn Post and not Council for discoloured water unless you are making more out of this story then (sic) it actually is,” he wrote to us in an email.

But the council has now commenced a seven-day city-wide flush of water lines and will conduct water quality tests while they carry out this work.

The council has denied the program is in response to either the Post’s story on Wednesday, or subsequent social media pressure.

A council spokesman has today contacted us to clarify that water lines are flushed monthly as normal practice, with the main water lines into the city from the reservoirs scoured every five years (most recently in September), not flushed as we had reported, based on initial council information.

We still find the timing and announcement of the monthly flush after our Wednesday report to be curious, but we, along with the rest of the community, will be interested to see its results.

However, in the council’s defence, this issue has raised one valid point: if your water is discoloured; if your rubbish or recycling hasn’t been collected; if there are loose animals on the road - the best way to ensure this is rectified is to call the council and let them know about it, instead of just venting about it on social media.

If you continue to experience discoloured water, call council staff on telephone 4823 4444.

* This editorial has been updated to include clarification from the council today, January 15.