In early January, Uralla Shire Council placed a boil water alert on the villages water supply forcing residents to seek safe, drinkable water elsewhere.

Days later, GemFM and 2NZ launched a 'bottles for Bundarra', bottled water drive to support the neighbouring village.

Breakfast announcer James 'Monte' Irvine said the amount of donations that started flooding in was astounding.

"Anthony from Bunnings contact me and said they were donating a 20,000 litre water tank to Bundarra. Once BEST heard of Bunnings' donation, they came on board and donated a second tank for the people of Bundarra to use," he said.

Both Inverell businesses wanted to future-proof the village, to ensure if they ever ran into the problem of undrinkable water again, they would have tanks to seek clean water from.

"The tanks were installed and filled with water last Monday."

Monte was blown away by the amount of donations received from businesses and individuals throughout the drive.

A week after the drive was launched, Tingha Plateau was hit by fire, and even though the concentration went to the people of Tingha, donations still kept flowing for Bundarra.

"It was great to see pallets of water donated. The library did a bottles for fines initiative and Coca-Cola donated 25 boxes of water. A lot of listeners also jumped on board."

Uralla Shire Council lifted the boil water alert on February 22 advising residents that chlorine residuals greater than 0.5mg/L were consistently being achieved.

The council and NSW Health put out a statement to say they were satisfied the disinfection of the system had stabilised.

"Council staff will continue to monitor the chlorine residual and flush the system as required in order to maintain the required level of residual chlorine.

"Council wishes to advise residents that a reddish/brown tint may persist in the town water for a period of time.

"The colour is caused by oxides of iron and manganese.

"The water is safe to drink, however residents should avoid laundering whites if they detect this discolouration in their supply.

Stains to laundry can generally be removed through the application of citric acid. Citric acid powder is available from supermarkets.

"It is essential that wet items do not dry out and that you do not apply bleach," the statement read.