2018 – 43rd WIOA Queensland Water Industry Operations Conference and Exhibition
6 & 7 June 2018 at the Logan Metro Sports Centre
Hosted by: SEQWater
Prime Sponsors: Alliance Automation, Calix, Hach, Honeywell, Ixom and Xylem
The following papers are listed in order of the conference program
An innovative approach to future operations Mark Tosh – Queensland Urban Utilities Anammox
+Abstract
The Luggage Point Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) is the largest water utility in Queensland treating 750,000 equivalent persons (EP) in the Brisbane region through an activated sludge treatment process. To meet the evolving needs of the people we serve and protect the surrounding environment, the Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU) Innovation Centre at Luggage Point STP is harvesting a novel process called Anammox which utilises special bacteria to remove ammonia at reduced aeration and carbon requirements and ultimately improve plant operations and cost.
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The top 5 calibration horror stories you’ll want to avoid Fiona Milnes – Simmonds & Bristow
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We all know that calibrating your equipment is an important part of getting an accurate testing result. But sometimes, things go wrong. Horribly wrong. In this paper we explore five mini case studies where calibration mistakes have negatively impacted the plant’s results, performance and efficiency. We’ll look at what happened and how it could have been prevented, including easy techniques to incorporate into your day to day activities so that your plant is never on this list!
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Botulism at Mt St John Sewage Treatment Plant Glenn Twite – Townsville Regional Council
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Ducks have historically occupied the Townsville City Council’s (TCC) Mt St John Sewage Treatment Plant (MSJSTP) clarifiers towards the end of the dry season when the Town Common wetlands are at their driest. During this time, in previous years, ducks have been found deceased on the MSJSTP site. Effluent samples were collected and analysed for blue green algae, and deceased wildlife samples collected and analysed for botulism. Dissolved Oxygen (DO) profiling was also conducted in the affected areas of the plant to determine whether the plant’s biomass had been compromised.
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SWIM Local water and sewerage process data visualisation – a joint initiative between qldwater and Lutra Dr David Scheltinga & Maseina Koneferenisi – Queensland Water Directorate/Lutra
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qldwater’s Statewide Water Information Management (SWIM) project was created in 2006 to simplify the annual reporting requirements of Queensland’s Water and Wastewater Service Providers (WSPs). The SWIM system was very successful in achieving this and qldwater members using SWIM now report only around one quarter of the indicators that they used to report, and this is done in one format at one time. Following the success of this significant piece of work, qldwater identified data issues affecting annual reporting at the WSP level and saw a need to add more value for members by introducing a local data management tool (SWIMLocal). SWIMLocal is seamlessly linked to SWIM and allows WSPs to better manage their daily water and wastewater data.
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A new technology solution for an age old problem Andrew Sarkady – BASF Protecting concrete assets
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The severe conditions that occur in sewers and Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) structures require concrete surfaces to be protected from biogenic sulfuric acid (BSA) attack and abrasion. Many types of protective coating and lining systems are used, but a new technology developed and supplied by BASF since late 2016, offers a unique combination of application and performance properties. Suitable for new installations or refurbishments, with low VOC’s, the 1 mm thick application by simple equipment (spray or hand) rapidly cures even at low temperatures, meaning reduced application times and enabling fast return to service with minimal downtime, critical for ongoing operations. The benefit of delivering longer maintenance cycles and lower life cycle costs, it’s use can significantly reduce the total cost of ownership.
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Yackandandah energy storage project David Bedggood – North East Water
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North East Water in partnership with the Intelligent Water Network (IWN) and the Totally Renewable Yackandandah (TRY) group have just completed the first solar photovoltaic and battery storage installation to run a water treatment plant off grid. Along the journey North East Water have also partnered with SPAusnet to test energy storage through a mini grid pilot program that will see a sewerage pump station being powered by local housing that will collect solar energy for the batteries to run the station. Both these projects are helping North East Water meet its carbon pledge of a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2025.
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What can you expect in accuracy of your online analytical instrument Rod Wellings – Royce Water Technologies
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In this presentation we will talk about terms like Calibration, Accuracy and Precision. Then discuss calibrating pH and dissolved oxygen instruments and the environmental influence that can cause you to scratch your head.
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Managing through, and managing to get through, a disaster Peter Stapleton – Whitsunday Regional Council
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Natural disasters whether they are floods, fires or tropical cyclones impact on a service provider’s ability to supply safe drinking water and wastewater services. Important learnings arise during the preparation for them and recovery from them. With the Whitsundays Region impacted by Tropical Cyclone Debbie in 2017, and a near miss with Cyclone Iris in April this year, learnings from these experiences may assist other service providers with their future disaster management. With improved disaster resilience, preparation and recovery times, overall costs and impacts to customers can be reduced.
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Co-existing with telecommunication carriers Jill Busch – Aqualift Project Delivery
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There are documented horror stories when the balance between the burden of Telco infrastructure on water assets and the LWU’s need to manage its water supply integrity favour the Telcos. Whatever the case may be, there is now a stronger need for LWUs to understand and exercise their legislative rights to meet water supply and governance requirements, reduce their business costs imposed by Telcos facilities, and to highlight any legislative deficiencies so things can be fixed. This need is further compounded by TPG Telecom’s announcement (April 2017) to become Australia’s fourth Carrier operator, and the Australian Government releasing its strategy (October 17), to support the timely rollout of 5G in Australia including “…streamlining arrangements to allow mobile carriers to deploy infrastructure more quickly…”1.
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TIMS (Totally Independent Managed Supply) Logan’s answer to an alternate emergency water supply solution Brad Milfull – Logan City Council
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Water Operations over the years, has experienced issues with providing acceptable levels of continuous water supply to residents affected by emergency or planned water outages. As a potential solution to these issues, Totally Independently Managed Supply (T.I.M.S.) was developed as a prototype delivery system to address this need whilst improving safety and efficiency of supplying potable water to residents, businesses and schools during periods of water main isolation whether they be emergency or planned isolation.
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Chlorination system upgrade at the Alpha and Jericho WTP’s Des Lamb – Barcaldine Regional Council
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Raw water to supply the Alpha town is drawn from 5 bores. There are quality concerns with high levels of alkalinity, TDS, Silicates, Chlorides with the water and it does not comply with ADWG. Primary chlorine dosing with Sodium hypochlorite (hypo) exacerbated the drinking water quality issues with Chlorate levels increasing to levels above the recommended aesthetic limit set in the ADWG. A significant decay rate in the hypo results in rapidly changing available chlorine levels. This in turn create issues and difficulty in maintaining the required chlorine concentration set point in the final drinking water. Changing primary chlorination from a Sodium hypochlorite solution to a Calcium hypochlorite dosing system (HTH Briquette tablets), resulted in improved water quality with much lower Chlorate levels, within the ADWG aesthetic limits for drinking water.
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Operational tools to determine treatment strategies for mitigation of cyanobacteria Claire McInnes & Kelly Newton – WaterRA
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Based on the many years of research within SA Water, the project team predicted full scale treatment process effectiveness for the removal of cyanobacteria and their metabolites could be modelled using laboratory scale experimental data. The project team reviewed the current literature available on treatment, and with this information developed procedures for 1) treatment plant audit for cyanobacteria (risk and removal) and 2) investigative sampling (verification of treatment barriers). Full scale investigative sampling was conducted when cyanobacteria issues arose to identify unit process effectiveness of intra- and extra-cellular metabolite removal.
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Applying IoT technology to sewer monitoring applications – an iterative approach Kylie Rogers – Mackay Regional Council & Marc Englaro – Taggle Systems
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Mackay Regional Council has been working with Taggle Systems over the past few years to apply low-power Internet of Things (IoT) technology to other applications including Automatic Meter Reading. The Council and Taggle chose to work together to use similar techniques to light up these normally “dark” assets; collecting data about sewer performance to better understand the system and make wiser decisions about planning, maintenance and capital spend. This system that collects sewer levels and real-time rainfall data aims to determine the likely causes and locations of inflow and infiltration, and helps predict future overflow events.
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Ferrous chloride dosing for rapid response to reduce STP odours Al Law – Unity Water
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Numerous odour complaints were received from the local community surrounding Maroochydore Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP), including residents, industry and caravan parks. The odour complaints were due to emissions of elevated levels of gases, including hydrogen sulphide (H2S). The solution was to use the existing alum dosing facility, and re-purpose it for ferrous chloride, in combination with installing a new dosing location into the inlet works. This project was particularly impressive as it was delivered rapidly, four (4) weeks from contract award to commissioning, with no interruption to STP performance or licence compliance, and achieved the objective of preventing further odour complaints being experienced by the local community.
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Who’s working on your pipes? The evolution of network access Jessica Cloumassis – Queensland Urban Utilities
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Three years ago Queensland Urban Utilities utilised a number of manual processes, paper forms and non-integrated systems to manage applications and issue permits for staff or contractors to conduct work on, or near our assets. The system, entirely paper based, required applicants to submit work plans and associated documents in hard copy for assessment by our technical staff. Driven by our commitment to safety, customer service, operational excellence and innovation, we have taken our capability to the next level with the design and implementation of an on-line system for interested parties to apply for a permission to work on or near our assets.
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Maximising value from SCADA Peter Bell & Michael Seymour – Logan City Council
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SCADA has helped Logan City Council water network operations staff to keep their ‘fingers on the pulse’ of the network and provide rapid response to alarms. This paper outlines Council’s SCADA system and how it has been set up to provide far more than real-time data monitoring and network control. It will describe how data can be downloaded into a spreadsheet ‘dashboard’ which provides vital information on the performance of wastewater pump stations; highlighting those which have unusually high or low pump hours, pump starts, pump cycles, faults, outage hours, pump availability and surcharges. These indicators are predictive tools that can warn staff of potential problems. The problems can then be prioritised on a catchment basis, enabling staff to address the most critical issues first. Development of such a dashboard can assist other small or medium sized water utilities to make full use of SCADA data.
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Cost effective retrofit of a conventional packaged plant for improved performance Julian Tickle – Townsville Regional Council
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The Giru Water Treatment Plant (WTP) is a 2 ML/d water treatment facility located in Northern Queensland which utilises a conventional “package” style treatment process, constructed in 1989. The WTP receives raw water pumped from the Haughton River, which during high flows has a turbidly of over 100 NTU compared with an average of 2 NTU. Following coagulation (with aluminium sulphate), flocculation, clarification and media filtration, the water is disinfected and pH corrected prior to distribution to the townships of Giru and Cungulla.
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Unearthing the past to chart the future Priyanthi Samarakoon – Logan City Council
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Logan City Council’s water main renewal programs were reactive; addressing asbestos cement (AC) mains after multiple failures. Council decided to take a more proactive approach by conducting condition assessments of the mains during replacement of unlined fittings. The first zone selected was the Eagleby District Metered Area 55 (DMA); one of the older networks in the system. In this DMA, an opportunistic AC pipe condition assessment program was implemented using on-site phenolphthalein testing. Results indicated that age is only one of many factors that influence pipe condition/ failure rate. This paper discusses the many challenges and benefits associated with this initiative.
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Ballina Recycled Water Scheme Thomas Lees – Ballina Shire Council
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Ballina Shire Council launched its Lennox Head Dual Urban Reticulated Recycled Water Scheme in July 2016. This article intends to review the process leading to and following this event. Identifying the issues experienced within the first twelve months of operations and prior decisions made that contributed to the smooth implementation of the scheme.
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Round Mountain Reservoir – Tesla batteries on a saltwater chlorinator Chris Pipe-Martin – Logan City Council
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Solar power, battery storage and electrolysis technologies have been combined at the Round Mountain chlorinator to deliver a reliable and safe solution for water disinfection boosting at a site without sealed road access or mains power. The $3 million project was completed in December 2017 to improve water quality to one of Australia’s fastest-growing local government areas.
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Technical competency frameworks and operator certification Dr Kathy Northcott – WIOA
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A water business that can demonstrate their people have the skills and knowledge to safely and competently carry out their roles in water industry operations provides assurance to regulators, communities and the users of drinking water and recycled water. Recent major public health incidents (e.g. Flint Michigan, USA, and Havelock North, NZ), and the outcomes of subsequent investigations, have highlighted the critical importance of technical competency in the water industry. This recognition of the level of risk posed by poor management of water treatment and networks has reinvigorated interest in the development of industry licensing and certification schemes for water operations professionals worldwide.
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Annual operating strategy – embedding drought security into the business Jim Fear – Seqwater
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The Annual Operating Strategy was developed due to the key business drivers of optimising operation cost whilst not adversely impacting water security or water quality. The Annual Operating Strategy is now embedded into our daily business and is reviewed every six months to ensure current operations are optimised considering both cost of operation and longer-term water security and demand drivers.
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