The Casterton Water Treatment Plant (WTP) is a combination pressure and gravity filtration system. Raw water is drawn from the Tullich bore field some 14 kms away from the WTP. The original treatment and supply system to Casterton consisted of filtration and sodium hypochlorite dosing to maintain water quality. Once this water is treated it is stored in a combination of clear water storages (CWS) to service Casterton and the surrounding towns of Sandford, Merino and Coleraine.

Adding to the demand of the original plant is the supply to the other towns. This has created several treatment issues, including increased water demand, seasonally fluctuating raw water quality, increased chlorination requirements to maintain chlorine residual over longer distances, chlorine residual causing oxidisation and fall-out of Iron and Manganese in the reticulation, high numbers of colored water complaints and issues maintaining chlorine residuals in the retic.

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Burdekin Shire Council is located between Townsville and Bowen in North Queensland. It covers an area of 5,053 km2 and has a population of around 18,500 people. Ayr is the largest town with a population of around 8,500.

Like most towns across Australia, sewage odour and the consequent infrastructure corrosion is a serious concern. Sewage odour is a significant OH&S risk, while sewage infrastructure corrosion rates and consequent failure are a high cost for the Shire.

In an endeavour to tackle the OH&S Risk from sewage odour and its associated infrastructure corrosion cost, Burdekin Shire Council has trialled a number of dosing systems with varying degrees of success. The current dosing system employed minimises the OH&S risk from sewage odour, has eliminated odour complaints from the dosed area of the system and minimised infrastructure corrosion.

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The majority of filter cells in Gippsland Waters’ 18 Potable Water Treatment Plants incorporate a system of in floor nozzles direct into a plenum or in floor laterals. The primary function of the nozzles is to collect filtrate after it has passed through the media. The secondary and equally important function the nozzles perform is distribution of air and water during the backwash process to remove entrapped particulate matter from the filtration media. During normal filtration operation it became apparent that things were not going as expected during the backwash sequence. The signs of bed disturbance were there and so the quest for a solution began. Our solution involved the separation of the air scour and water wash sections of the backwash process. This involved some clever design of prefabricated sections of each air scour system so they could be manufactured and installed with minimal fuss.

The subject of filter bed inspections is not covered in this paper, but some of the issues highlighted during these inspections are mentioned. This presentation is an insight into what changes were made to our systems, which has led to improved air and wash patterns of those filters that have been modified to date.

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The expectation of an Operator in the water industry sometimes requires them to be an expert in Mechanical, Electrical and Microbiological processes. Operators also need to be proficient in laboratory analysis and have skills which ensure they meet daily EPA discharge licence agreements from their waste water treatment plants or meet Australian Drinking Water Guidelines with the water produced from their drinking water treatments plants.

As we know, very few operators in the industry have backgrounds in Chemistry or Microbiology and have very little experience in executing Good Laboratory Practices (GLP). My 10 years experience in the industry and 10 years prior experience in a NATA Certified lab, has led me to being able to identify common, re-occurring errors in an Operators laboratory techniques, particularly when performing analysis of critical parameters using a Photometer or Spectrophotometer. I write to share these experiences and identify ways of improving general Operator laboratory analysis techniques, and their results.

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The variability and extremes of the Australian climate often results in high summer water temperatures, very seasonal flows and sometimes stressed rivers. Dealing with this variability poses many challenges for our river managers. In some river systems in Australia, treated effluent can be a major component of the total flow and discharges from Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTPs) are increasingly being regarded as a potential source of environmental flows.

Overseas studies have indicated that Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs) and other micro pollutants (pharmaceuticals) may not be fully removed by existing waste water treatment technologies. In the Australian context, there was very little understanding of what impact the range of micro pollutants present in WWTPs effluent could have on native aquatic species.

To obtain information in Australian conditions, a collaborative study was conducted by CSIRO and the U.S. Geological Survey at the West Wodonga WWTP. This plant receives waste water from the Wodonga Township as well as several other trade waste customers. As the plant discharges treated effluent to the Murray River, it was an ideal site at which to undertake such a study and the results are included in this paper.

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With the increased focus on reducing operating costs and minimizing greenhouse emissions, it is now more important than ever to understand how well pumping stations are performing. Most pump stations are now monitored by SCADA systems, and may have PLC control systems, and these can provide the data required to develop useful information to ensure performance of the stations is optimised.

Focusing on pump efficiency is only part of the answer, and it is necessary to look at the performance of the whole system to ensure best performance is realized. This paper demonstrates Melbourne Water’s development of standard performance measurements that apply to all stations, on both the water supply and sewerage systems.

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The need for long term monitoring of filter performance is presented along with data from a number of Australian WTPs. The data is bench marked against similar data from the US Partnership for Safe Water (PfSW). The reader is left to decide for themselves whether the performance of our Australian plants represented by the graphs is acceptable.

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There are key differences between the approach taking to managing drinking water supplies in New Zealand and Australia. In New Zealand water suppliers are required by law to comply with the drinking water standards. The standards themselves are arguably the toughest in the world and require compliance to be demonstrated continuously by on-line monitoring. The performance results of all plants are published and are available to the public. This approach is working in New Zealand since there has been a demonstrable improvement in drinking water quality since this approach was adopted.

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Source water quality and water treatment plant operation and/or process can have a significant impact on treated water quality, particularly disinfection by-product (DBP) formation. Key factors affecting DBP formation were examined in three different scenarios commonly encountered by water authorities. These scenarios include: assessment of different source waters for blending; water quality change from drought to flood condition and evaluation of different water treatment processes. In all three scenarios natural organic matter or dissolved organic carbon concentration (DOC) and bromide had the greatest impact on DBP formation. When combining different water sources, the optimum blend composition was found to depend on both water quality and the disinfection strategy used.

For chlorination, blending with greater amounts of ground water was found to be favoured due to its lower concentration of DOC which reduced DBP formation. In contrast, with chloramination, blending more surface water was favoured due to the presence of iodide in the ground water which was found to form medicinal taste and odours when chloraminated. Under drought conditions DBP formation was dependant mainly on bromide concentration while under flood conditions, DBP formation could be directly related to DOC concentration. Water treatment processes with multiple strategies for DOC removal reduced DBPs to the greatest extent.

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The installation of the Beenyup WWTP Biological Odour Control System, supplied by Clean TeQ Limited, supports the acceptance of BioTrickling Filter technology within Australia as the technology of choice for the demanding application of gas phase H2S mitigation. It also supports a growing trend that has seen advances in design and understanding flow through to the public arena positioning the BioTrickling Filter as the technology of choice not only for H2S applications, but also for the demanding application of Odour and VOC’s mitigation. By utilizing dual stage treatment in a single vessel this project showcases the ability of the Biotrickling Filter as the all-rounder treatment technology for WWTP applications. It has also proven that odour control is no longer considered an afterthought, but is a critical part of the WWTP’s process that must be addressed to ensure compliance and operational security.

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Macarthur is a small town in Western Victoria. The water supply was classified as non-potable due to the high arsenic levels found naturally in the bore. The source of the arsenic is from the local geology surrounding the aquifer. The water supply in Macarthur has been classified as non-potable since the Department of Health changed the arsenic requirement from 50ppb to 7ppb in the 2004 Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

This paper outlines the treatment process optimisation for arsenic removal and the results of a new granular ferric oxide media arsenic sorption plant. The success of this project resulted in Macarthur Water Treatment Plant producing water with arsenic below detectable limits. The supply has been reclassified as a potable supply from the 1st July 2011.

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Up until January 2011 the Toowoomba region was in the grip of one of the worst droughts on record. During the dry conditions Council implemented measures to conserve the remaining storage supplies, Level 5 water restrictions were introduced and ground water extraction was increased after drilling and equipping additional basalt aquifer bores. In January 2011 flood events were experienced and all 3 surface storage supplies filled above full supply level. The flood event stretched Council resources to the limit and caused significant damage to council’s water infrastructure. Sewer and water mains were washed from their foundations, major pump stations were submerged and dam walls experienced water levels and hydraulic loads higher than ever previously recorded.

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If seeing is believing, then it logically follows that to gain a greater understanding of the urban water cycle we need to be able to visualise what is happening both above and below the ground. The ability to visualise water and sewer networks, pumps, valves, pressure and other aspects in real-time, combined with the power of seeing things such as rock and tree roots in three dimensions, would provide water utilities with much improved planning capability to deliver more effective and efficient outcomes for the end customer and community.

‘us’ – Utility Services understands the potential for this next generation technology to deliver value through visualisation of under and above ground assets. We have partnered with technology provider Nextspace (NZ) to build a platform to support our capital works program with 3D visualisation.

Visual Water, whilst still in pilot stages, has already provided significant planning improvements and efficiencies. As a 3D visualisation platform, Visual Water enables extraction of geospatial data, 3D transformation through evidence-based processing and the deployment of data for 3D visualisation in workflow applications, the web and also smart devices (eg iPad). This is transforming the way ‘us’ – Utility Services plans and undertakes capital works, manages assets, deploys training and engages stakeholders.

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In February 2007, in an effort to improve the leadership and ownership (in other words the Culture) of the Central Operations and Maintenance team at Goulburn Valley Water (GVW), the team embarked on a Performance Improvement Program.

The Performance Improvement Program has greatly improved how the team feels about each other, how it is viewed by others both internally and externally and how it performs. It encompassed improved customer service, meeting its key performance indicators and provided clarity relating to staff performance through the establishment of a leadership group. This group undertakes regular peer assessment reviews and tracks altered behaviours as outcomes of the peer assessments.

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The benefits and key learnings of the Central Highlands Water (CHW) traineeship program is articulated through this paper in the context of better business outcomes and trainee career development. The traineeship model will be explored and related to industry needs.

The CHW Water and Wastewater Operations Division identified a need to build staff capacity and as a result implemented a traineeship program between 2009 and 2011.

A catchment to tap approach was adopted in the creation of the five operational roles that were allocated to the Catchments, Headworks, Maintenance and Water Treatment teams. The NWP30107 Certificate III in Water Operations training package was tailored to meet individual team specific skill sets and core business needs. The completion of core units ensured a common understanding of the water industry, whilst elective units reflected the breadth of the approach.

Trainee selection and appointment was supported by effective induction procedures. The development of competencies and skills was underpinned by matching trainees with experienced leaders. Regular two way feedback tracked the learning and development outcomes achieved and this lead to a progressive increase in trainee workplace responsibilities.

At the conclusion of the two year period, partnerships with employment and training services, supervisors and trainees have resulted in a significant increase in the capacity of the operations division to delivery water quality. Traineeships now form a key component of CHW workforce strategy and play a vital role in the inter-generational exchange of corporate knowledge.

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GSA will be involved in substantial development work surrounding the simplification of Training Packages over the next two years. This will see significant changes in the way Training Packages are presented and used by industry and RTOs.

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For many years, water has been at the forefront of public and media attention, mostly as a result of prolonged drought. The topics most often discussed relate to reservoir levels, restrictions and management of our rivers. Little attention is given to the operational side of the industry and the challenges that need to be met on a daily basis.

Issues such as variable and often poor quality source water, under-designed or over extended water treatment plants, algal blooms, and in more recent times, flooded water and wastewater treatment plants, damaged infrastructure and a host of other issues all impact on our ability to supply safe, palatable drinking water every single time the consumer turns on their tap.

Errors at treatment plants or within water distribution systems can place thousands of people at risk as has been amply demonstrated in Walkerton (Canada) and Milwaukee and Gideon (USA). These incidents directly contributed to widespread illness and a number of deaths in their communities. Countries such as the USA, Canada and to a lesser extent New Zealand now have formally regulated systems in place in response to these types of events. These regulations ensure the pathogen contamination risk of the source water is matched to a treatment plant able to manage the risk posed by the source water. Additionally, the operator skills set required must then meet the complexity and sophistication of the plant itself. Sadly, Australia has not kept up with overseas best practice.

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In September 2010 the Victorian Department of Health (DoH) issued the “Victorian Framework for Water Treatment Operator Competencies – Best Practice Guidelines” (the Guidelines). The Guidelines define the minimum training, qualification and competency standards that operators must attain and maintain in order to operate drinking water treatment facilities in Victoria. An important aspect of the Guidelines is the development of an Operator Certification Scheme which recognises the professionalism of water operators. Currently WIOA has the first and only such certification scheme endorsed by the Department of Health in Victoria. Veolia have put together a steering group responsible for managing the transition of training, competency and certification under the new Guidelines.

Arising out of the steering group, a project management team has been created responsible for ensuring operators achieve competency levels, as well as development of operator refresher training programs suitable for operator certification. The long term goal is for the training strategies and systems developed in Victoria to be influential in the implementation of operator competency and certification programs across all of Veolia’s Australian operations. This will ensure that Veolia is able to operate at a level that achieves industry “best practice” and meets the needs of our clients Australia-wide.

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Water Services have implemented the trial of two P-912 wearable Point of View (PoV) camera kits for the purpose of recording assessment activities by operators undertaking training through the Water Training Package.

Historically the gathering of evidence against units of competence by operators undertaking RPL/RCC activities has being poor and time consuming with many operators abandoning efforts to compile their portfolio of evidence.

By introducing and using the point-of-view cameras it is hoped that this will expose them to an awareness of how technology can be adapted to suit the learner in their usual work environment. The PoV cameras are an excellent tool for recording workplace activities and practical skills, and can be utilised remotely by the student to record their assessment activity. The use of PoV cameras will augment traditional forms of evidence such as written explanations of process, copies of reports, third party report etc.

This project aims to develop strategies and tools to enable the use of PoV cameras for remote assessment of learners. This will meet an urgent need for alternative assessment options for remote personnel, who may be currently disadvantaged by lack of access to assessors.

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This paper has been extracted from various submissions generated by Goulburn Valley Water and Greater Shepparton City Council.

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Malpas Dam is the source of water for the town of Armidale in the New England area of New South Wales, a community of 25,000 people. Since its commissioning, Malpas Dam has had a history of cyanobacterial (blue-green algae) events, with generally at least one bloom occurring per year. During the algal blooms, contamination of the raw water source with taste and odour compounds is common, and on occasions cyanotoxins have been detected. In the 1980s liver damage in the community was linked to a bloom of Microcystis. A robust barrier is therefore required to deliver safe and aesthetically pleasing drinking water to the Armidale community.

The 40 ML/d conventional treatment process at Armidale WTP (coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation, filtration and chlorination) was not capable of removing the organic contaminants to target levels. A powdered activated carbon (PAC) facility was installed and provided a barrier for the micropollutants however this approach was expensive, time consuming for operational staff and presented a number of health and safety issues. The PAC system was unreliable and customer complaints were still forthcoming.

This paper details the process of selecting, designing, building and operating an ozone and biological filtration process which has replaced the PAC dosing system and provided numerous water quality and operational benefits.

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Victoria is currently building a desalination plant in Wonthaggi, capable of delivering up to 150 billion litres of drinking water a year.

This paper will discuss involvement of the Melbourne Water Operations Group in getting ready for desalination. It focuses on the water supply system changes required to receive water from the new plant.

Melbourne Water Operations Group was involved in three key aspects in getting ready for desalination:

• Asset integration works to reconfigure Melbourne Water’s transfer system.
• Storage management to maintain water transfers and storage levels over the planning, construction, commissioning and operation of the desalination plant.
• Development of protocols for commissioning, operation and maintenance of the 84km pipeline between the desalination plant and Melbourne’s existing supply network.

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