Yarra Valley Water’s 2013 Strategy includes a key objective on the safety and wellbeing of its staff and contractors. As part of implementing this strategy and achieving ongoing improvements in occupational health and safety, Yarra Valley Water has undertaken a review of its emergency response chlorination practices and identified a significant improvement opportunity. Historically operators have had to work from heights to spot dose tanks with sodium hypochlorite, which has potential for an unsafe combination of working from heights and chemical handling. Yarra Valley Water together with its civil contractor Bilfinger Berger Services and Jonoco Pty Ltd developed a Portable Dosing Unit which endeavours to mitigate or remove these hazards from field spot dosing activities.

The Portable Dosing Unit also offers a more accurate and effective process to spot dose reservoirs or water mains. It utilises flow measurement to volumetrically inject a specified volume of sodium hypochlorite solution into a Reservoir inlet to facilitate even mixing and reduce the potential for chemical short-circuiting. This approach to emergency disinfection enables Yarra Valley Water to respond promptly and efficiently to emergency water quality events and ensure that our contractors can work in a safe and practical manner.

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Replacement of filter media over the years has proven to be a dirty and labour intensive exercise. Dust problems are magnified by fully enclosing filter cells at treatment plants to minimize the growth of algae and contamination by wildlife and debris. Apart from the dust hazard, manual handling of 25kg bags of anthracite up stairs was also a major OH&S concern. The manual handling was usually done when a top up of anthracite was required at the smaller plants, and on those occasions it seemed OK to lug the bags up the stairs. Be that as it may, those practices had to be stopped, and the hazards involved with the process removed. A cleaner, safer and more cost-effective method of topping up the filters using vacuum technology was trialled.

Using this method the media is sucked out of bulky bags and mixed with water. The beauty of the system is that it eliminates the dust and manual handling issues very effectively, and is a locally designed and manufactured product with technical support close by. The purchase of specialized pumps to drive the vacuum unit was a one-off expense. The only ongoing costs will be routine maintenance of these pumps as they are used on subsequent jobs.

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Veolia Water Australia (Veolia) operates three water treatment plants (WTPs) under the AQUA 2000 contract with Coliban Water, to supply safe and reliable drinking water to Bendigo, Castlemaine and Kyneton. All three WTPs are advanced microfiltration plants with a combined capacity of around 150 ML/d, making Veolia Bendigo Operations one of the largest microfiltration plant operators in Australia. The three microfiltration plants have been fully operational since 2002 and since then the Bendigo Operations team has collected a significant body of knowledge on membrane performance.

The team uses a customized access data base for recording maintenance activities such as pinning, membrane change-out and damage to membranes. Membrane performance parameters such as flux, resistance, log removal value (LRV, pathogen reduction) are routinely monitored and reported. This is compared with data on raw water quality and membrane recovery after backwashing and chemical cleans. Finally, membranes are periodically sent for autopsy to assess the effectiveness of cleaning and evidence of fouling. The combined monitoring and maintenance information enables better understanding of membrane behaviour. This paper will present the results of the first 8 years of operation of microfiltration membranes at Bendigo WTP. In particular the lessons learned with regard to the interaction of raw water quality, backwashing and chemical cleaning and the importance of a good maintenance regime on maintaining performance.

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East Gippsland Water (EGW) is committed to improving customer service by improving the sewer network performance and has embarked on a program of proactive maintenance of our ageing sewer network in an effort to reduce customer interruptions and improve Essential Services Commission (ESC) and other regulatory compliance. To achieve this we aim to optimise the use of our human, financial and corporate resources. To this end, specialist teams have been developed in a number of areas to ensure a targeted, professional response to customer service and asset maintenance issues. EGW has invested in new equipment to assist staff in addressing these problems.

As part of this proactive maintenance program, EGW has analysed the performance of various sections of the sewer network and have been targeting the poorly performing sections to improve overall performance.

Sewer cutting and root foaming activities as well as routine manhole inspections and other programs have been initiated. The success or otherwise of varying methods is being monitored over time for cost benefit purposes – this proactive maintenance has resulted in a reduction of sewer blockages and general compliance with ESC Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

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Recent changes to workplace regulations, largely relating to safety, mean that workers now need to carry and deploy a large amount of extra equipment in order to operate and maintain existing pump stations in South East Water’s network area. Gary Grogan and ‘us’ – Utility Services have developed and installed a safety turret at Balnarring in response to the key issues which had been encountered by field crews. This paper describes the features and benefits of the pump station safety turret installed at Balnarring, Victoria, Australia, which removes a large percentage of the safety concerns, thus reducing the risk of damage to assets and injury to personnel.

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Goulburn Valley Water (GVW) has an annual program to investigate and where necessary rehabilitate gravity sewers. A list is prepared annually for the CCTV inspection of sewer mains from towns within the Corporations districts. The inspections incorporate cleaning, root cutting if applicable and closed circuit camera and video survey (CCTV). Based on the results of the CCTV inspections, sewer mains are then selected for renewal or rehabilitation.

GVW historically concentrated on large diameter deep concrete sewer mains as these were regarded as being those with the largest likelihood of failure and greatest consequence of failure.

Involvement in the WSAA/CSIRO sewer blockages project and adoption of the proposed water industry best practice for managing sewer blockages has resulted in GVW broadening the section criteria.

GVW now uses the CCTV inspection program to identify sewer mains for rehabilitation, but also to clean sewer mains and reduce the reoccurrence of sewer blockages, and is targeting sections of the sewer network with high sewer blockage rates. This is identifying a higher percentage of sewer mains that require rehabilitation than the previous program criteria.

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Mechanical agitators are used in various applications within a wastewater treatment plant, including in Anoxic/Anaerobic/De-nitrification Mixing Tanks, Sludge Mixing Tanks and Equalization/Neutralization Tanks. However in many instances, the presence of fibrous solids leads to an entangled “rag build-up” on the impeller which, over time, results in both mechanical and electrical overload leading to possible failure of the machine if adequate removal of the rag build-up is not maintained.

A new impeller design (LIGHTNIN Clean-Edge) has been recently developed to yield the same process result as a traditional three-bladed high-efficiency hydrofoil impeller without rag build-up during operation. This new design impeller will draw equivalent power at the same speed and is therefore easily retro-fitted to existing equipment. Benefits include: reduced electrical energy usage; reduced repair bills; reduced maintenance costs and increased plant availability.

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Nitrogen in Port Phillip Bay needs to be managed in the long term to ensure the environmental sustainability of the bay (Port Phillip Bay Environmental Study, CSIRO, 1996). To address this issue Yarra Valley Water (YVW) has developed a self imposed cap of 87t of TN (Total Nitrogen) for discharges that contribute to the load received by the bay. To ensure continued compliance with the cap a number of nitrogen reduction projects have been identified and assessed on a $Net Present Cost ($NPC) per kilogram of nitrogen removed basis. Comparing these projects against other stakeholder’s potential nitrogen reduction projects indicates that YVW’s projects are financially competitive and will remove more nitrogen.

YVW therefore sees the potential for surplus projects to be made available to other stakeholders to assist with Lowest Community Cost management of nitrogen loads to the Bay. In order to achieve this YVW has been consulting with both EPA and Melbourne Water on the potential development of an environmental offsetting framework. This paper focuses on the nitrogen reduction projects identified and how they may be implemented in the context of either an internal or external offsetting framework with stakeholders such as the EPA and Melbourne Water. It is currently proposed to develop a pilot study to investigate this further.

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Goulburn Valley Water has developed a product manual as a resource for use by staff, consultants and contractors. It provides an easy to use tool to aid in the design and upgrading of assets and to provide for increased cost saving through common procurement and operator familiarity with equipment and setups. It also serves as a tool to help the transfer of knowledge from lessons learnt and to accelerate the process for designing and building of new assets.

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In 2000 Goulburn Valley Water (GVW) undertook an internal review of its operations. From that review the 2000 GVW Operations Strategy was published, and rolled out across the corporation.

Under the Operations Strategy it had been identified that: around the date of the merger, Goulburn Valley Water’s maintenance management system was predominantly based on reactive maintenance.

The report went on to identify that, since implementing scheduled maintenance a number indentified shortfalls are, the potential for over servicing, poor application of resources, unnecessary downtime during overhaul and a higher fault frequency related to recommissioning had occurred.

The strategy went further to identify the need for a combination of Breakdown Maintenance (BM), Scheduled Maintenance (SM), and Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) programs, were required to ensure the availability of GVW assets. This paper focuses on how GVW trialled a condition monitoring program, or RCM, on the Central Water Treatment Districts assets. The purpose of the trial was to identify what would be required to roll out a comprehensive program, across the corporation’s assets.

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Goulburn Valley Water (GVW) is undertaking a comprehensive sewer network odour management strategy to control sulphide generation, odour emissions and corrosion in the sewer network. The success of the consultancy in preparing the strategy and subsequent implementation of the recommendations relies on the members of our Operation teams.

The development and delivery of the strategy is highlighting that Operations is crucial to identifying odour sites, undertaking accurate odour monitoring, informing the public and ensuring the odour control facilities continue to operate efficiently.

This has been achieved by Operation team leaders and staff taking ownership of the strategy which has been demonstrated by participation at project workshops, hosting informative site visits, installing and downloading hydrogen sulphide gas monitors (oda-loggers) and actively participating in problem solving.

The process has also provided staff with the tools required to inform members of the public about the strategy as they now possess the knowledge and understanding as why sewer odours are being generated and GVW’s process to manage the current issue and plan for the future.

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The Victorian Government is implementing major water supply improvements to improve the security of supply for Melbourne and one project, the North South pipeline provides a supplementary supply of water from the northern Goulburn River Catchment to Melbourne Water’s Sugarloaf Reservoir.

This paper discusses the combined industry approach in the preparation and management of a significant change from a predominantly unfiltered gravity supply to a filtered. A significant amount of work was required to ensure that assets, water quality and customers were not affected by this change and that a seamlessly transition was made.

Key aspects focussed on during the planning, preparation and operational phases for this changed transfer operation were:

• Understanding the operational and hydraulic changes to the MWC transfer system and its affect of our distribution facilities;
• Understanding the changed operational risks of changing to a pumped system;
• Understanding the potential for WQ impacts due to a change of source water; and
• Overall combined industry approach in the preparation and management of our distribution system and our customers.

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In February 2009 the community-owned-and-operated water supply scheme in the small town of Eskdale in North East Victoria ran dry. A few weeks later it was announced that the scheme would cease operation within eight months after approximately 60 years of supplying the town. This led to North East Water increasing its involvement and subsequent Board endorsement of a business case to deliver a completely new drinking water supply scheme for the town, including a Water Treatment Plant (WTP).

North East Water (NEW) considered options for delivery of the WTP, knowing that both budget and time constraints limited typical project delivery paths such as Option Studies and Tender Processes, and therefore opted to back itself and utilise in-house expertise to deliver the project in the challenging timeframe.

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The content of this Platform Paper will cover the Filter Upgrade Program that was undertaken by Water Treatment Operators at Central Highlands Water for the Maryborough Water Treatment Plant. The Paper will also discuss in summary a program that is being undertaken to automate chemical dosing, increase of Raw, Filtered Water analytical surveillance and new main Switchboard/PLC construction.

The Paper will cover issues such as a source water change from Surface Water to Ground Water due to the current drought conditions and Manganese issues associated with filter media that has been in service since commissioning of the WTP.

The paper will talk to the initial investigation into the Filter upgrade program along with the steps that were taken to complete the program such as removal of existing filter media and nozzles, inspection of the Plenum, installation of the new nozzles and filter media. It will also include commentary that discusses the filter performance, pre and post the upgrade program being undertaken. This commentary will outline to the audience what NTU improvements can be made following a filter upgrade program.

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It is well known and accepted that people learn in different ways. Wannon Water now has the technical resources to allow Operators to learn out in the field by viewing a CD. Recently a CD was created for inexperienced Operators covering various theoretical and practical aspects of chloramination. A great deal of consideration has gone into the content, layout and delivery of the CD and the accompanying booklet to make learning simple and even enjoyable, while still containing detailed and high level information. The focus of the CD was always on the Operator and this has proven to be a sound approach as feedback from Operators, including Senior Operators, has been very positive. Wannon Water will now create more CDs on various aspects of water treatment to assist with future training. Issues encountered while developing the CD included providing sound, getting video demonstrations to play once they were burnt to CD and circulating the draft. In the future Wannon Water will look to provide field demonstrations utilising mobile phones.

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There will be a full review of the water training package (NWP07) undertaken during this period. Two key commonwealth initiatives are to include “sustainability/green skills” and also “flexible qualification” requirements into all training packages.

Key areas of focus for the review will be Certificate IV, Diploma and Graduate Certificate levels of the package. Additionally, consideration will be given to introducing an Advanced Diploma to the training package. It is also anticipated that new units will need to be developed at certificate levels II and III to accommodate evolving needs of industry.

To successfully complete this review, industry will be extensively consulted. This will involve identifying changing and emerging needs through a variety of consultation and communication processes. We intend to utilise Technical Reference Groups, comprised of subject matter experts within industry, as well as, seeking input and feedback more broadly across the industry.

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The effectiveness of a lamella clarifier unit for primary treatment of domestic wastewater was investigated. The trial was divided in to three operational phases: Phase I – operation of a conventional primary sedimentation tank; Phase II: operation of a lamella clarifier for primary settlement; Phase III – operation of lamella clarifier for primary settlement in conjunction with a chemical coagulant (aluminium chlorohydrate). The performance of the lamella clarifier was assessed in terms of the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen and total phosphorus removal efficiencies. Results demonstrated that the lamella clarifier unit performed favourably when compared to the conventional primary sedimentation tank, with BOD5 and SS removal efficiencies of 30% and 57%, respectively (Phase II). The operation of the lamella clarifier in conjunction with coagulant (Phase III) enhanced nutrient removal, thereby improving the overall performance of the system.

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Councils have in the past constructed their sewers backfilled them and let them drain away without much care or attention or at times not even a second thought. Like a corpse in a grave, buried and never to be seen again.

In recent years investigations have revealed that a lot of the sewers that have been constructed for greater than 40 years are showing signs of degradation.

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The Tarago Reservoir was disconnected from Melbourne’s network in 1994 because water from its open catchment was not suitable and the city’s storages were about 90 per cent full.

In October 2006, with storage levels down to 44%, Melbourne’s Water Strategy was released by Premier Steve Bracks, with one of the key projects being the reconnection of Tarago Reservoir to Melbourne’s water supply system

In May 2007 with storage levels now down to 29.3% it was announced that land had been obtained for a new treatment plant at Tarago Reservoir in Gippsland.

In November 2007 construction was started on the Tarago Water Treatment Plant by a Joint Venture consisting of Baulderstone, United Group, GHD and Sinclair Knight Merz. Operators were recruited and assigned to the project during the early stages of the design. The Operators undertook extensive training, visited a number of WTPs and worked cooperatively with the Joint Venture to heavily influence the design of the plant.

The result of this early involvement by Operators in the Project, assisted in the treatment plant being completed 6 months ahead of schedule and $3million under budget. In June 2009, the day before Tarago Water Treatment Plant was officially opened, storage levels hit an all-time low of 25.6%. Tarago WTP and has been running relatively trouble free since then.

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