Electrical power reliability is one of many factors that are necessary for the ongoing successful operation of water industry facilities. Electricity is a utility that the customer generally takes for granted, assumes that it will be available 24×7 and with properties that are ‘fit for the purpose’. However the practical reality can be somewhat different. The continuing growth in the use of power electronics and electronic controls in all facets of society has placed new emphasis on the importance of creating and maintaining an environment in which electrical equipment will operate reliably.

This paper discusses some aspects of electrical reliability that can impact on the reliable and repeatable operation of electrical and electronic equipment. All examples are taken from assignments that the author has performed in the Victorian water industry.

-Close

Opportunities for water conservation abound in industry within areas that are traditionally overlooked.  Centrifugal pumps, which represent a significant proportion of the variety of equipment found in most mineral processing and industrial manufacturing environments, can be a substantial user of water.  With the right approach, significant water reductions can be realised offering savings, not only in water consumption, but improvements in reliability and the associated lowering of maintenance costs.

John Crane Australia has approached water conservation with the SmartFlow, a simple product that regulates water consumption to match the heat load placed on the system.  It also has applications beyond pumps to include any system that utilises water to dissipate heat, including bearing coolers, cooling jackets and similar equipment.

-Close

This paper is an overview of experiences associated with the design, construction, installation and startup of a new fluoride dosing facility at the Wodonga water treatment plant (Huons Hill).

The paper deals with critical aspects of the project including: detailed design, construction, risk to public health, staff training, environmental issues, maintaining treatment plant operations, spill containment and a safe working environment.

-Close

Central Highlands Water, in accordance with the Safe Drinking Water Act 2003 has embarked on a ten year regional community water quality improvement program. Lexton (located in NW Victoria) is one such community water system selected to address the water quality issues, including colour, disinfection by-products, specifically trihalomethanes (THM’s), and salinity. A pilot trial was conducted to evaluate the capability of MIEX® Technology followed by microfiltration (MF) & reverse osmosis (RO) to address disinfection by-product (DBP) and salinity issues. MIEX® Technology was used for the reduction of true colour, dissolved organic carbon (DOC) & THM management. Microfiltration & RO was used for removal of turbidity and inorganic salts (i.e. TDS) respectively.

The pilot trials have shown that raw water treated using this combined process will satisfy the relevant guidelines and regulations for True Colour, THMs and TDS and will also achieve the desired “step change” improvement in treated water quality. The preferred option for upgrade of Lexton WTP is use of MIEX® Technology as pre-treatment, followed by MF, then RO membrane filtration (i.e. RO – 50% of total plant flow).

-Close

Dealing with stratification within water supply reservoirs is a common problem for urban water authorities. Failure to identify and control stratification can compromise water treatment operations, meeting regulatory standards, customer expectations, environmental flow releases and potentially isolate an affected reservoir from a supply system.

In recent years, CHW field staff have undertaken stratification monitoring to identify the early onset of stratification and developed operational response procedures that introduce appropriate control measures to avoid potential impacts and minimise any adverse affects.

-Close

Climate change hypothesis’, if correct, points towards bushfires becoming increasingly prevalent in Eastern Australia. Consequently it is imperative that rural utilities implement sound bushfire risk management protocols across all aspects of their business operations. Similarly recovery from bush fires is optimised through advanced planning.

This paper identifies a number of short, medium and long-term bushfire risks confronting water authorities, with assets in rural areas, and suggests treatments for those risks.

Above all else it endeavours to evoke an awareness of the risks and the associated potential for damage to assets, degradation of water quality and mental trauma to staff that is created by bushfire. It also aims to highlight the need for sound advanced preparation for, and management of, future events.

-Close

This paper focuses the integration of River Health from parts 28 and 29 of Central Highlands Water (CHW) Statement of Obligations into the authority’s Water Services Division.

An explanation is given of the obligations CHW carries in respect to River Health. This connects regional strategies developed by Catchment Management Authorities and the Department of Sustainability and Environment with the management of water authority assets.

Impacts arising from water authority service obligations pose future questions for water managers. Understanding these impacts through monitoring will assist decision making and will articulate constraints on water authorities given old assets, drought conditions and the environmental needs of waterways.

-Close

Utility Services has been operating and maintaining pressure sewer systems for South East Water Limited since 2001.  The pressure sewer systems had advantages over traditional gravity sewers in some instances – for example, flat topography with high water tables – in that construction would be shallow with minimal environmental disturbance.  However, we had little experience with the operation and maintenance of the pressure sewer systems at the early stages.

Through a process of continual improvement, ‘us’ – Utility Services has “ironed out” the initial problems with the pressure sewer systems, and we are now confident that they are a viable alternative to gravity sewers.

-Close

Since microbes are responsible for odour and corrosion problems in sewage catchments, it makes sense to elicit a control over the responsible microbes.  This can be achieved by ‘down regulating’ or slowing down the bacteria in the sewage catchment, using cell-signalling technology.

The down regulation of the microbes can be used to cause the disintegration of the biofilm / sediment complexes within the pipes as well as bacterial flocks that may form in pressure mains.  This down regulation of microbes treats the cause of sewage odour generation and has a theoretical odour reduction of >99%.

As microbes are responsible for sewage process, manipulating microbes to enhance sewage process is equally logical.

-Close

Maintaining water quality in water distribution systems is of paramount importance to reduce the risk of waterborne contamination affecting customers. Programmed mains cleaning, in conjunction with suitable disinfection systems, is one tool a system operator can use to minimise the risk of contamination. There are a number of methods available to clean water mains including flushing, air scouring, swabbing (pigging), disinfection and jet rodding. The latter method is a tool of last resort and can have significant detrimental affects on the main if not undertaken correctly and in conjunction with mains lining. The townships of Beaufort and Blackwood in the Central Highlands region of Victoria have UV disinfection and have undergone mains cleaning and disinfection trials over the last 2 years.

-Close

The $20M upgrade of Hamilton City Council’s (HCC) water treatment station (WTS) has met the project vision by giving Hamilton a world-class water treatment facility. The Hamilton WTS now represents the largest municipal drinking water UV disinfection facility in Australasia and largest granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration plant in New Zealand (NZ).

Maintaining an uninterrupted water supply to the City of Hamilton throughout the duration of the project was a significant project challenge. Therefore the manner in which the design consultants and HCC staff interacted to ensure supply continuity was critical to the success of the project. This team approach and dynamic was a key factor in the project’s success.

This paper is of particular interest to those interested in understanding key success factors of large projects and provides a significant recent example of works in the NZ water industry where a complex multidisciplinary project successfully completed in a “brown fields” environment.

-Close

In the year 2000, the upgrade of the Mittagong Regional Sewerage scheme took place under a design and construct contract. This was a $40 million project which included the design, construction, commissioning and process proving of a new treatment plant at Braemar with a capacity of 14,000 EP.  It also included the provision of sewer to the northern villages of the shire which entailed the laying of approximately 80 kilometres of pipeline including trunk mains, gravity mains and rising mains.  A total of 15 new pump stations were constructed.  The project also included the decommissioning and demolition of the existing trickling filter plant.

In conjunction with the project some upgrades of the existing reticulation systems and pump stations were carried out.  Installations of PLC control and telemetry systems were provided to all pump stations and the plant.

-Close

East Gippsland Water participated in a joint venture project with Gale Pacific, CSIRO and SuperSpan which explored the overall benefits of covering water supply storages with shadecloth as an alternative to replacement with covered tanks, solid covers or floating covers.  The project ran from 2004 to 2006 with four storages (two raw water and two clear / treated water) monitored for one year uncovered and one year covered.  Two control storages (raw and treated) were monitored for two years uncovered.  At the end of the study it was shown that the incidence of algal blooms was dramatically reduced.

Water fowl and wind-borne organic materials were less likely to enter the water storages.  Aquatic plants could longer grow at the bottom of the storages, reducing maintenance costs.  Evaporation rates were reduced by approximately 90%.  This drop in evaporation loss is highly significant and, in circumstances where alternative water supplies are not available, potentially valuable.  The improved water quality and reduced risk of algal blooms and other contamination provided by the covers offers a valuable enhancement in security of water supply.

-Close

Two years on from the merger of three water authorities, Wannon Water Corporation has achieved much.  Now it is time to focus more on the assets; time to become more KLEvA (Know our assets, Look after our assets, Every Asset) with our asset management. Already we have integrated information systems and work practices from the former water authorities and made plans for enhancements. To facilitate further improvements we believe there is need build on the past and to become an ‘asset centric’ organization, an organization that recognizes and values the contribution of our people to achieve clearly defined asset management objectives.  We intend to build this culture and achieve these results through broad based training and awareness raising, consultative and cooperative development of an asset management strategy, plans and systems, and effective communications and feedback throughout the organisation.

-Close

Sewer blockage reduction and the maintenance of that reduction is an important consideration for most water authorities. Targets are set, resources are allocated and the achievement of those targets should then be a mere formality. Shouldn’t they?

This paper will discus an asset management company’s evolution of this approach, with respect to the delivery of sewer blockage targets to a regional water authority.

The major areas this paper will discuss include data interpretation of initial blockage rates, determination and allocation of resources to achieve set targets and a discussion on the positive and negative aspects of each of these with present performance, future targets and recommendations. Through these discussion points it will be shown how client’s targets can be met by using internal resources and investment with sound data collection and monitoring techniques.

-Close

This paper will highlight the problems that occurred in the staffing when implementing a 24 hour customer service centre and SCADA monitoring system at Goulburn Valley Water (GVW).

The satisfactory resolution was a credit to all involved and has led to the more efficient handling of customer queries and a quick response to any system faults that may arise.

-Close

The Atlantium HOD (Hydro Optic Disinfection) reactors are manufactured in Israel and distributed through out Australia by Clean TeQ, a national process and environment engineering company.

This breakthrough technology uses the principles of fibre optics to ensure complete saturation of the UV light throughout the light and water contact chamber. Special reflectors transmit the UV light through precision ground lenses with the lamps external to the water flow. With the HOD unit, there is no heating of the water and therefore almost no build up of mineral scale and bio fouling so evident in all other UV systems. Further prevention of bio-fouling is achieved through the use of an optional ultrasonic device fitted to the reactor chamber which, after exhaustive testing, almost eliminates fouling from waters containing high iron and calcium content. Any fouling that occurs takes place over a long period of time.

The lamps being totally removed from the water flow allows an absolute guarantee regarding downstream security against glass and mercury contamination should there be a lamp breakage. Atlantium HOD units are very suitable for both water and wastewater plant installations and are set to revolutionise both small to medium size town disinfection requirements.

-Close

Due to illegal trade waste discharges from some of the industry around Rotorua to the sewers, grab samples were collected but relied on the honesty of the industry to not discharge illegally. Therefore a simple and cost effective continuous sampling system had to be designed and built to monitor the discharges of the industries.

Design concepts were trialed and modified until we had a new system working well with minimal maintenance, tamper proof, refrigerated, with true discharge representation.  The client now thinks twice before dumping untreated effluent.

-Close

Bundaberg City Council and Camreay Holdings have been working together to find a long term environmentally sustainable option for the re-use of biosolids. This paper examines the cradle to grave process of turning a waste product into a beneficial resource. The paper will be jointly presented by Keith Nicholle, Millbank Wastewater Treament Plant Operator and Graham Campbell, Proprietor Camreay Holdings. The first section of the paper will present the operators perspective of treatment processes and transportation of biosolids. The onsite composting process and potential for future developments and opportunities will be discussed by Camreay Holdings in the second section.

-Close

Licola is a small town in the high country of Gippsland.   In 1969 the then derelict logging town was purchased by the Lions Club of Victoria, and restored to provide a high country experience for children of all backgrounds.   In Summer 2006-07 the community was under siege by bushfires which passed right through the town, burning trees and bushes within meters of buildings and homes.  The fires caused extensive damage to the towns water distribution system, melting pipes both above and below ground.  While the dedicated team of Lions volunteers set about rebuilding the distribution system, another problem was brewing.

Loss of ground cover and deposits of ash in the catchment area sent the historically pristine Macalister River to a dirty muddy creek, with worse still to come.  The Lions Club approached Gippsland Water for assistance in treating the water to supply the camp and town.  Chemical dosing options were assessed, and the town swimming pool was modified and utilised as an emergency clarifier, with some generous assistance from water industry suppliers the system was a success.

-Close

The prolonged drought has been the catalyst for much of the water industry to better manage our scarce resource.  There has been a considerable re-education process for both the public and Water Corporation staff alike of the need to, and benefits of using water wisely.

There is a new emphasis on being able to account for all water from the time it is extracted from its source, until it comes out of the consumer’s tap.  There is also some major expenditure under way by the various Water Corporations on initiatives to minimise the losses from the systems.

So, in putting forward the project submission, I raised the question “is this a global train of thought, or is it merely confined to those areas which have been ravaged by the recent drought?”  And the ideal follow on from this would be to investigate and report on exactly how organisations were dealing with this issue, if at all, and provide some ideas about how changes might be implemented to save more water.  Many such initiatives are noted in the final report.

In undertaking this project, a number of organisations in both Australia and New Zealand were contacted and/or visited and they readily provided information relevant to the project.  Interestingly, attitudes to water use and conservation still differ markedly depending on geographic locations.  It is true to say though, that even in those places where water conservation is not a high priority at present, attitudes are changing and it is only a matter of time. Armed with all the new found knowledge, the final part of the project involved trying to make a real difference in my local area – Wannon Water.

-Close