2019 – 13th WIOA NSW Water Industry Operations Conference and Exhibition
3 & 4 April 2019 PCYC in Orange
Hosted by: Orange City Council
Prime Sponsors: Calix, Hach, Ixom and Xylem
The following papers are listed in order of the conference program
What can you do, to get to 0.2? Michael Carter – Hunter H2O
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With reliance on surface waters from unprotected catchments, filtration is at the heart of many WTPs. A well operated and maintained filter serves to form a barrier to particles, including pathogens, that if not removed would result in poor disinfection, dirty water complaints and an increased disease burden on the community. Media filtration often follows the ‘80 / 20 rule’, whereby a majority of the obvious benefit of filtration can be achieved easily. However, with increased focus on filter performance from regulators and consumers, it is critical that we aim to get the final 20% in order to achieve <0.2 NTU.
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Distributed temperature sensing to identify inflow/infiltration in Australian sewer mains Julie March – Hunter Water Corporation
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In January 2018, Hunter Water and Royal HaskoningDHV implemented Distributed Temperature Sensing to assess inflow/infiltration sources in the Dungog Wastewater Network. Dungog has a small network which experiences significant wet weather inflow/infiltration (I/I) and will require significant capital upgrades shortly if I/I is not reduced. Traditional investigation methods such as CCTV are usually carried out during dry weather and are unable to locate many I/I sources which only become apparent during wet conditions, so alternative technologies were considered for this project.
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Manganese removal using pre-filter chemical oxidation Shawn Charlton – Federation Council
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Prior to 2002, the Corowa water supply was unfiltered. Raw water was pumped from the Murray River and disinfected using chlorine gas then transferred to the town water supply reservoirs and from there into the distribution system. In 2002, the Corowa Water Treatment plant was constructed, but unexpectedly the council started to receive an increased amount of “dirty water” complaints. Customers were reporting black or dark brown water, with the majority of the complaints being generated in the spring and summer months. The council quickly discovered that a manganese biofilm was growing on the inside of the reticulation pipework and this biofilm was dislodged during times of high water use, causing the discoloured water.
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Botulism at Mt St John Sewage Treatment Plant – Winner Best Operator Paper Queensland 2018 Glenn Twite – Townsville Regional Council
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Ducks have historically occupied the 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. This generally occurs in the summer for the duration of approximately a month prior to the onset of rain. In November 2017, MSJSTP staff began recording duck deaths in and around the clarifiers, disposing of 25 duck carcasses per week.
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Murrurundi Litree plant install James Davis – Upper Hunter Shire Council
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The small town of Murrurundi in Upper Hunter Shire Council has for many years had issues with water supply to the community due to challenges of both quantity and quality. Murrurundi originally ran solely off a gravity fed pipe from the river, dosed with chlorine and then straight into the town reservoirs. This was until the late 70’s early 80’s when the river started to dry up.The then Murrurundi Shire Council decided to build an off-creek storage dam to manage the increasingly sporadic flows.
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The leap to digital: A SCADA upgrade 10 years in the making Adam Drenoyanis & Allan Gikes – Shoalhaven Water
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Shoalhaven Water (SW) is currently embarking on a multi-generational leap in their remote telemetry systems. SW has identified the need to improve a number of areas within their current organisation-wide Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system including the data analytics capability to provide better intelligence for their business.
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Optimising an old Water Treatment Plant during drought Natasha Chapman – Tamworth Regional Council
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During recent drought conditions, low flows in the Namoi River led to high raw water pH and alkalinity. Despite jar tests showing the ability for the alum to provide acceptable treatment, the plant struggled to maintain effective coagulation and flocculation which led to short filter run times. Town consumption demands are low enough to not require the plant to operate continuously. This allowed the operators to isolate the plant, perform jar tests and identify options to address the issue before poor water quality was sent to the distribution system.
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Knowledge and skills, plug the leaks Sallyanne Bartlett – WaterQPlus
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The objective of the project is to demonstrate the value provided to water industry organisations by having frontline operators that are equipped with the right level of competency to fulfil their roles. Using the analogy of a “leaking / burst pipe” this presentation aims to illustrate the crucial role the level of frontline operator competency plays in the prevention of active human errors (analogy of a burst pipe) and the introduction of latent errors (analogy of cracks or integrity breaches just waiting for the conditions to align for the inevitable burst to occur).
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Valla Beach pump station odour control Richard Spain – Nambucca Shire Council
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Council has experienced ongoing odour complaints from a pump station at Valla Beach for a number of years. Different options have been tried such as carbon filters and bio- oxygen to eliminate the odour with varied levels of success. This report discusses the use of a product supplied by Calix called ACTI-Mag (high surface area Magnesium Hydroxide slurry), which has been dosed into the sewerage system to control the odour issue. The odour problem is accentuated due to the pump station’s close proximity to established houses.
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Algae control in potable water dams Murray Jones – Aquapac
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Earth Science Laboratories (ESL) is an innovative technology development company in the USA that has developed products for the drinking water, agricultural and swimming pool industries. Aquapac is a water treatment specialist company based in Australia and has become the sole distributor for the ESL product range in Australia.
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Bonny Hills Wastewater Treatment Plant optimisation, the journey to date Michael Ducat – Port Macquarie Hastings Council
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In the mid 2000’s Council identified that meet the growing population and future projections the plant would need to be upgraded as it could exceed it capacity by 2011. In 2009 the plant had its phase one (1) upgrade to a 12000EP plant with the future options to increase to an 18000EP plant. These upgrades would ensure improved discharge quality and regulatory compliance and the option to utilise the treated water for a number of reuse proposals into the future.
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ABCD compact modular outdoor arc-flash containment switchboard Peter Taylor – PT Automation Solutions
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PTAS’s ABCD (Arc-Blast Containment and Diffusion technology) is a unique invention that enables a compact outdoor switchboard to be capable of containing the catastrophic outcomes of an electrical arc-flash explosion. Such explosions are not common but hospitalise 39* electrical operators and electricians each year with significant 3rd degree burns. Fatalities do occur.
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Nabiac Borefield construction and commission Nathan Bakewell – MidCoast Council, Water Services
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The $34 million Nabiac Inland Dune Aquifer Water Supply System project is a long term goal of MidCoast Council Water Services and aims to provide the community with water security into the future. It will provide an alternative to the Manning Water Supply Scheme, currently providing water to approximately 70,000 people in the Manning and Great Lakes areas of New South Wales.
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Effluent reuse – bringing it into the 21st Century Belinda Green & Wes Trotter – Aquagreen Project Solutions & Kempsey Shire Council
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This paper outlines the program that Kempsey Shire Council undertook to implement best practice management of some of its effluent reuse facilities and some of the interesting challenges we found along the way. The legislation that governs how Council manages these facilities has varied over the past 20 years. Initially this guidance focused on environmental risks. In 2007, the Australian Guidelines for Water Recycling (AGWR 2006) were introduced with the guidance having an increased focus on managing public health risks. The AGWR is a risk-based framework, which introduces management practices that adopt a “fit for purpose” approach to managing the use of recycled water.
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Emergency preparedness Jill Busch & Doug Moorby – Aqualift Project Delivery & Narromine Shire Council
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Being prepared for an emergency within a local water utility is like foreseeing into the future with a crystal ball. Not everything will be known and not everything will go as expected. However, considering what can go wrong with the management of the water and waste water supply, understanding your systems and how they function, and learning from your own past experiences (or from other water utilities), will give you an insight in to how best manage a future incident or event.
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Membrane fouling caused by inorganic loading (ragging) Luke Elliott – Shoalhaven Water
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The Kangaroo Valley water reclamation facility was commissioned in June 2013. The contract was a design and construct agreement with AJ Lucas being awarded the construction tender. Since the facility has been handed over to Shoalhaven City Council for operation there have been several issues that have hindered the efficient operation of the site, the most predominant being inorganic fouling of the membrane filters.
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Spot market influences and power shedding principles Winner – Best Operator Paper in Victoria 2018 Nicholas Moore – North East Water
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This paper helps to inform organisations of the risks and benefits of being on the spot price market. We will highlight some simple power shedding principals to avoid high price events and show actual demand reductions and cost savings associated with these price spikes and will demonstrate what our response so far and what our future plans for managing power into the future.We will show that as our level of comfort with being in the spot market increases and our operational control improves, we can make further savings on our total power costs.
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How we survived the 2019 record breaking heat wave Christopher Cornell – Albury City Council
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January 2019 has turned out to be our hottest month on record, with record breaking temperatures covering parts of Australia.With this came operational issues around water supply, equipment over heating, staff heat stress and trying to keep our assets running through this period of extreme weather. This is our story on how we pushed through this event and the remedial actions we took during and after the event to ensure the water and sewer kept flowing through these record high temperatures and be able to cope with future heat waves.
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Major maintenance requiring coordinated filtration plant shutdown Matthew Benstead – TRILITY
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To provide an engineered solution that provides an opportunity to refurbish an essential flow control inlet valve (GKILR 800) with minimal shutdown time in a 24/7, 365 day water filtration process operation and mitigate the risk of a single point failure. Investigations of options included a dual inlet control valve pipe arrangement, a valve replacement to a modern plunger valve design until final selection of a temporary, double flanged 750-30A butterfly valve with modified spool pieces was selected to allow off-site refurbishment of the original GKILR 800.
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VHF ethernet communication Alex McCaffrey – Port Macquarie Hastings Council
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Long Flat Water Treatment Plant (LF WTP) is an unmanned microfiltration plant that is controlled by SCADA via a UHF radio link. The Water Process Team responsible for running the plant and ensure water quality compliance currently rely on a limited amount of information available on the SCADA system. LFWTP has always struggled with unreliable communications to the radio repeater with a mountain range in between making it difficult to maintain a reliable signal path.
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