project plan: guide to sanitary surveys and operational

Project Plan: Guide to Sanitary Surveys and Operational Monitoring in Catchments

1. Deleted

2. PROPOSAL SUMMARY AND ADMINISTRATION 2.1 Short Form Project Title Guide to Sanitary Surveys and Operational Monitoring in Catchments 2.2 Project Title Good Practice Guide to Sanitary Surveys and Operational Monitoring to Support the Assessment and Management of Drinking Water Catchments 2.3 Key words

• Australian Drinking Water Guidelines • Geographic information systems • Health-based targets • Observational monitoring • Operational monitoring • Risk assessment • Sanitary survey • Vulnerability assessment • Water Services Association of Australia

Form No RES FOR 01

RES FOR 1 – Part A Core WaterRA Projects Template Version 3 Feb 2015

2.4 Abstract

The global water sector has traditionally used ‘sanitary surveys’ to inventory potential pollution sources and their associated controls within catchments. Traditional sanitary surveys involved physical catchment inspection along with the recording of observations on maps and in notebooks. Professional judgement provided the basis for the interpretation of results. These traditional sanitary survey methods are now being updated in order to keep pace with current water sector needs and to make use of modern technologies.

Modern catchment vulnerability assessments are being undertaken in order to yield semi-quantitative assessments of risk to drinking water sources. Catchment assessments are used to inform likelihood and consequence ratings for maximum risk assessments, as well as discounting to residual risks given the influence of preventive measures in the catchment, in accordance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality (Framework). More recently, catchment assessments are being used to define drinking water treatment requirement categories under the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and soon-to-be revised ADWG ‘health-based targets’ (HBT) guidelines. During ongoing routine operations, periodic catchment assessments are required as part of routine ‘operational monitoring’ under the ADWG Framework.

Modern catchment assessments should draw from satellite imagery and geospatial databases held by a variety of organisations and make use of modern inspection methods and data management techniques. The results should produce records that are linked to time and location metadata and that can be stored and interrogated in spread sheets, databases and geographic information systems (GIS). The catchment assessments need to provide output that can be subjected to peer review and that can be used to justify catchment investments to pricing regulators and enforcement actions to environmental regulators.

Within the global and Australian water sector a variety of catchment assessment methods have been developed within recent years. This project will draw together and present current best practice, note recent innovations, highlight current research and development activities and predict future research priorities. The guidance produced will provide worked examples and recommendations of good practice catchment assessment and sanitary survey methods that make appropriate use of modern technologies and that meet contemporary needs. The final guidance produced will help guide the water sector in its conduct of catchment assessments and observational monitoring under the ADWG Framework and for establishing treatment requirements under HBT approaches.

2.5. Start Date (indicative only, project commencement on date of contract execution)

2.6. Project Duration (months)

1st February, 2017 6 months 2.7 Project Proponent Organisation: Water Futures Pty Ltd ABN: 97 109 956 961 Street address: 66 Merrivale Road, Pymble Postal address: 66 Merrivale Road, Pymble Project Leader Alternative Contact Name: Dr. Daniel Deere Name: Karla Billington Phone: 0409283737 Phone: 0430593773 Fax: Fax: Mobile: 0409283737 Mobile: 0430593773 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]


2.8. Project Team & Collaborators (Details of the project team and other collaborators that will deliver the project)

Name Organisation Roles and Responsibilities Position FTE (%)

Claire McInnes WaterRA • Project Director • Oversight of the project

for WaterRA

Program Manager - Research

10

Dan Deere Water Futures

• Project Manager • Consultation including

being the focal point for liaison with east coast WaterRA stakeholders

• Guideline development • Pathogen and risk

specialist inputs

Director Water Futures 30

Karla Billington Naturallogic

• Consultation including being the focal point for liaison with central and west coast WaterRA stakeholders

• Guideline development • Catchment management

and GIS specialist inputs

Director Naturallogic 30

Industry Partner

3. INDUSTRY RELEVANCE 3.1 Relevant WaterRA Research Blueprint topic(s)

3.2 Relevance to WaterRA Research Blueprint

P3.4 Create decision support tools to achieve cost-effective public health management of water quality

The project will provide guidance on the use of catchment assessments (sanitary surveys and vulnerability assessments) to justify operational and capital expenditure on catchment protection investments as well as ongoing operational expenditure for catchment operational monitoring.

4.1 Support the Australian water utilities in the public health risk management of water supplies

The project will provide guidance on using catchment assessments to inform semi-quantitative assessments of risk to drinking water sources undertaken in accordance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality (Framework). The guidance will inform likelihood and consequence ratings for assessing maximum risks as well as discounting to residual risks given the influence of preventive measures in the catchment.

4.5 Support the development of relevant Australian health-based targets for drinking water

The project will provide guidance on using catchment assessments to define drinking water treatment requirement categories under the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and soon-to-be revised ADWG ‘health-based targets’ (HBT) guidelines.


3.3. Industry Relevance

Drivers and context

Health-based targets

The Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) have recently developed Health-based Treatment Targets (HBT) guidelines. The WSAA Manual for the Application of Health-Based Treatment Targets 2015 (the HBT Manual) and the most recent public consultation draft revision to Chapter 5.7 of the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) (2016) start with a requirement to complete a catchment ‘Sanitary Survey’ as part of the Source Water Assessment component of HBT.

The initial sanitary survey provides a semi-quantitative catchment pathogen risk classification, or ‘vulnerability assessment’, that puts water sources into one of four categories that in turn trigger pathogen reduction requirements through water treatment.

Once the initial sanitary survey is completed, operational catchment monitoring and management are required on an ongoing basis to ensure that the sanitary condition of the catchment is maintained (or improved). This catchment monitoring activity is critical to providing ongoing evidence of the source water challenge and, therefore, confidence that the water treatment plant in question continues to meet the source challenge.

Collectively these two components provide a mechanism for continued improvement in source water protection.

Catchment risk assessments

Since 2004, under the ADWG Framework, it has been good practice to complete semi-quantitative assessments of risk to drinking water sources. The approach involves assigning likelihood and consequence ratings for assessing maximum risks as well as discounting to residual risks given the influence of preventive measures in the catchment.

Once the initial risk assessments have been completed, operational catchment monitoring and management are required on an ongoing basis to ensure that risks are adequately managed and to inform review and revision of the risk assessments at periodic intervals.

Public consultation of the ADWG draft Chapter 5.7 revealed that further guidance is sought in relation to catchment aspects of HBTs. Specifically, further guidance is sought in relation to the completion of sanitary surveys, their interpretation and ongoing monitoring of catchments as part of assessing and managing catchment risk under the HBT process.

Sanitary Surveys

Whilst sanitary surveys are commonly undertaken in the Australian and global water industry (as stated in the HBT Manual), there has been considerable variation in the methodologies that are used. The choice of method for any particular situation will be influenced by factors such as:

• scale of utility;

• scale of catchment;

• perceived source water risk;

• desired level of precision;

• appetite for risk;

• data available;

• expertise available; and

• resources available.

There are currently many sources of guidance on the conduct of a sanitary survey in a catchment. However, none have been specifically tailored to meet the requirements of the HBT Manual or the ADWG. For some utilities, this implied flexibility is welcome and has facilitated the development of customised, tailored


approaches. On the other hand, many utilities are looking for more guidance to help promote consistency and good practice and provide confidence in the results. Furthermore, even for utilities that already have a sanitary survey approach, there would be clear benefits in benchmarking and possibly improving those approaches by drawing from a project that set out an industry consensus position on best and appropriate practices. The first intended outcome of this project is to provide valuable support for utilities looking for consistency in the delivery of sanitary surveys as part of their source water assessments to support HBT and other risk assessment objectives.

Note that rather than a single approach, an appropriate practice approach will recommend sanitary survey methods that consider the scale of utility, perceived source water risk, desired level of precision, appetite for risk as well as available data/expertise and resources. By doing so methods for qualitative and semi-quantitative assessments will be developed as will guidance on moving towards undertaking full quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA) as part of Tier 2 HBT assessments.

Operational Monitoring

A sanitary survey provides a point in time assessment. Once completed active operational monitoring and management of the catchment is required to ensure that the source water challenge is maintained (or improved) to ensure that the water treatment remains adequate. Operational monitoring will encompass both water quality monitoring and catchment observations and indicators that can be used to assess change in source vulnerability.

There are reasonably well-established guidelines to help define ‘operational monitoring’ and ‘process control’ for of water treatment preventive measures. This guidance helps define what to monitor, at what frequency and what limits to set to claim particular validated pathogen reduction performance. In contrast, guidance relating to catchments is far less well established. The second intended outcome of this project is to outline how to develop programs of ongoing ‘operational monitoring’ of catchment sanitary condition as well as providing guidance on ‘process control’ for catchment management preventive measures. To give due credit to good catchment management practices it is necessary to establish what is sufficient monitoring and control.

The guidance will help utilities looking for more explicit guidance to help promote consistency and good practice and to support benchmarking against industry agreed best practice.

Review of literature and current good practice

Sanitary surveys have been widely used for decades as part of drinking water quality risk assessment and treatment needs analyses. At their most basic sanitary surveys simply entail completing a checklist with the number of checked risks leading to a simple risk rating. This basic approach is essentially a hazard identification process that provides a beneficial starting point. But such an approach doesn’t facilitate more evidence-based source water risk categorisation.

A common criticism of the most basic sanitary survey tools is that they don’t give adequate credit to good catchment management practices. Thus, the use of such simple tools is not conducive to supporting good catchment management. The mere presence of hazards in the catchment does not necessarily imply a significant risk and such simple tools do not consider the possibility of containment within the catchment or the effect of scale factors. This prevents adequate consideration of processes that mitigate against pathogens reaching the drinking water source and other variables that influence the quantity of contamination. As such, more comprehensive sanitary surveys are needed to complete:

• an inventory of catchment hazards;

• consideration of scale, including details on quantities, qualities and frequencies; and

• consideration of transport pathways, from hazard source to drinking water off-take and evaluating catchment mitigation options, in-stream ad in-storage attenuation, as well as source selection.

More comprehensive sanitary surveys have often utilised more descriptive inspection templates, considering both the presence and scale of potential sources of pollution and also proximity to the water body and hydrological features such as the slope of land (WHO, 2016). As the complexity of the sanitary surveys increases, the use of semi-quantitative risk assessment approaches has often been utilised (Macary et al., 2014; Romanelli et al., 2013, Baker et al., 2016). Many of these techniques focus on a particular pollutant, hazard source or assessment end point (i.e. drinking water quality, recreational water quality,


environmental). Hence, whilst relevant, these methods don’t have sufficient scope to fulfil current requirements of catchment assessments.

Semi-quantitative assessments are at a formative stage of development and while they provide a beneficial framework to support the classification of data into risk classes with pre-determined scores, the approach comes with increased data requirements (and the need for extrapolation) and the application of assumptions regarding pathogen transport and attenuation. Existing frameworks (e.g. Macary et al., 2014; Romanelli et al., 2013, Baker et al., 2016) provide a very useful context for the consideration of pathogen risks within catchment, but could be improved through the parameterisation of hazard types with pathogen fate and transport processes receiving additional consideration to improve certainty in the outcomes. The semi-quantitative approach must balance competing factors. The complexity of inputs and process parametrisation that is required to effectively describe the critical components of pathogen fate and transport, need to be balanced against limitations of practicability with respect to current knowledge and reasonable degrees of extrapolation to achieve an acceptable level of certainty. The project will critically review current literature and publications to provide recommendations on this balance and will not simply provide a collation of current methods.

Building on existing utility experiences and methodologies

This project proposes to work with self-nominated partner WaterRA utility members and other water utilities or councils. We will critically review the currently available sanitary survey and operational monitoring methodologies to collate the current state of the art and then develop from those the practices that best that meet the needs of Australian water utilities within the HBT and ADWG context. The project team will build upon this existing work. It is noted that, for instance, that Water Corporation have significant experience with the development and application of observational monitoring techniques. Similarly, Seqwater has experience conducting multiple sanitary surveys. The project team will:

• make recommendations for HBT and broader ADWG sanitary survey options and note how those recommendations vary according to a water utility’s capacity, scale and intended reliance on catchment and source water management controls; and

• provide examples of how to conduct operational monitoring and process control for catchments in order to retain awareness and confidence in source water vulnerability assessments.

The work will be completed for both surface water and groundwater, which will entail complementary but specific guidance for each water resource.

Technology transfer

With any new industry standard or guideline comes the requirement for knowledge transfer and an environment that supports utility staff through the change in direction and implementation of new methods. As such, information and skills transfer is a major element of the project. The approach for technology transfer will be to ‘train the trainers’, so that water utilities (provided with sufficient expertise and learning materials) can train staff and adapt the material as required to local environments, thus providing efficient upskilling to all those that require it. To facilitate this, a training module and learning materials will be developed which describe and discuss the guidance document, with case examples provided to ensure that key learnings are effectively imparted to water utility trainers. Training of trainers will occur at three State locations and with a short presentation occurring at the WaterRA Research Symposium (July 2017, Melbourne).

It is anticipated that the ADWG would reference good practice guidance, such as the WSAA HBT Manual and the guidance produced arising from this report, to help water utilities implement HBTs. As such, the guidance delivered from this report will be produced with the intended purpose of being able to support implementation of the ADWG HBT Chapter 5.7. The Water Quality Advisory Committee, including the HBT Sub-committee (that includes one of the project proponents) will be given the opportunity to review and comment on the project deliverables with that goal in mind.

Why would this idea be of benefit to the water industry?

The project would benefit the water industry by collating current knowledge in this rapidly moving field and providing good practice guidance in relation to sanitary survey and operational monitoring practices in the context of the HBT and broader ADWG requirements. Better guidance on what a good practice sanitary


survey and operational monitoring program might look like would be beneficial to water industry by providing:

• Increased productivity, by avoiding the need for numerous utilities to separately reinvent and redesign methods.

• An auditable process that would give confidence to regulators, customers, and the public.

• Ensuring defensible decisions for HBT and broader ADWG compliance and risk management actions and will enable a transparent and evidence-based process to support pricing reviews and both capital and operational investment decision-making.

These benefits would be realised by:

• Establishing a fit-for-purpose sanitary survey guidance that is underpinned by best available science and best practice management.

• Providing guidance on observational monitoring including guidance on the methods of sample collection (when/where/how) and effectively establishing consistent sampling protocols for the industry.

• Providing guidance on how to interpret the results received back from laboratories.

• Provide case studies and training to ensure knowledge transfer of the guidance to members and the water industry.

The application of a nationally endorsed sanitary survey and operational monitoring approach would provide the water industry with an auditable process that would give confidence to regulators, customers, and the public. The guidance also increases productivity, by avoiding the need for numerous utilities to separately reinvent and redesign methods and ensuring that data and information collected is fit –for-purpose, directly relevant for required assessment and characterises risk variability in a suitable manner.

The project would benefit the water industry by setting out how to adequately monitor and manage catchments in an HBT context. The review will bring together Australia’s extensive expertise in sanitary survey, catchment monitoring and catchment management approaches into one best practice guidance document, with the outcomes of the project feeding into the Section 5.7 ADWG review. The approach will support the water industry in having a nationally consistent approach to managing catchments to protect water quality. The benefits will include ensuring defensible decisions for HBT compliance and risk management actions. In addition, the guidance will enable a transparent and defensible process leading into capital and operational investments.

A major benefit of a well designed and technically credible catchment operational monitoring would be the ability to place reasonable reliance on catchment and source water interventions as barriers to pathogen contamination. The resulting guidance would help prevent unnecessary water treatment expenditure by providing due credit to catchment and source water protection interventions.

4. SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

4.1 Hypothesis This project will not test specific hypothesis as a research project. The project will develop guidance for the water sector by drawing together the current state of the science into a guideline. Hypotheses that need testing in future will be identified as part of the research needs arising from the project.


4.2 Project Objectives

• Critically review, synthesise and present good practices in catchment assessments and sanitary surveys.

• Make recommendations on fit-for-purpose and appropriate practice for particular circumstances.

• Provide worked examples and case studies to illustrate these concepts.

• Providing ‘training of trainer’ training session at three locations around Australia.

• Highlight recent innovations and summarise the state of the art.

• Note current research and development activities that are likely to yield innovations in due course.

• Set out future research priorities and follow on research needs.


4.3 Research Methodology

The project would deliver a short form guidance document (approx. 60 pages), referenced to and building upon existing documentation. The guidance document would be developed through consultation with industry members and to address the findings of a comprehensive assessment of their needs. The proposed guidance will consider the areas of sanitary survey and operational monitoring for both surface water and groundwater catchments.

The proposed guidance will focus on the provision of methods that are applicable for at least two defined scales. The broader scale will provide for a more basic assessment method that is very much qualitative whilst the second will provide for a more semi-quantitative approach. Water utilities can then select a method that is ‘fit for purpose’ for their circumstance, based on a consideration of the scale of the utility, perceived source water risk, desired level of precision, appetite for risk as well as available resources with respect to data, expertise and cost. In both cases the guidance will provide key learnings based on a critical review and deliver tools including a standardised, survey guidance. The resultant method will begin with an initial desktop study that collates existing information that is followed by a physical catchment survey that confirms this information. The approach will determine whether pollution sources and barriers are within the catchment and the influence of pollutant pathway processes. Importantly, the guidance will give due consideration to scale and intensity factors and provide due credit for catchment and source water management interventions. The method will also provide additional guidance regarding the potential of large dams and aquifers to effectively act as barriers.

The three key elements that the guidance will consider are as follows:

• the sources and quantities of faecal pollution (including discharge volumes and frequencies);

• the pollutant transport and attenuation processes leading to a resultant water quality at the point of offtake (including proximity of the pollutant source to waterways, bores, and the point of off-take and the influence of hydrogeology and bore characteristics).

• the provision of existing catchment barriers and wellhead protection (considered within the process steps of: planning, policy and compliance, surveillance and auditing, and mitigation actions).

Hazardous activities detailed in the guidance will include:

• natural systems such as national parks and bushland reserves;

• agricultural pollution;

• wastewater effluent,

• stormwater effluent;

• industrial effluent;

• on site sanitation;

• transport; and

• recreational activities.

The guidance will provide activity-based checklists and examples of hazardous events and effective catchment barriers to help promote and justify good catchment management.

The semi-quantitative approach will use a scoring or index method to assess each hazardous event and to provide an estimate of the residual risk with the existing catchment barriers in place. The derived “risk index” will be based on easily measurable and available parameters such as scale of activity, run-off, terrain slope, proximity of the waterway, attenuation prior to the off-take, and the influence of barriers which can prevent or minimise pollution prior to the off-take. The “risk index” will provide numeric ratings which align with the vulnerability assessment categories for drinking water sources as described within the HBT Manual and the risk assessment rating system given in the ADWG Framework. A focus of the work will be to ensure that the appropriate characterisation and parameterisation of risk classes and processes which influence the subsequent cumulative risk score at the off-take.

Operational monitoring will include catchment water quality monitoring and observational and hazard indicator assessment. Catchment water quality monitoring will be reviewed with recommendations


provided to quantify the risk within the catchment and to characterise risk for the Tier 2 HBT requirements. The review of monitoring will include:

• methods for routine and event based sampling;

• statistical approaches to analyse data; and

• advances in smart monitoring techniques.

The HBT Manual indicates that the maximum E. coli count be used to identify the microbial indicator concentration category (Table 2), as such the defined category will be strongly influenced by the frequency of sampling and the effectiveness of event based samples within the dataset (with event samples generally related to the highest pathogen loads). Experience from some utilities indicates anomalous outcomes between the Source Vulnerability Assessment category and the Microbial Indicator Assessment Category. This result could be related to limitations in the monitoring program as well as an overestimate of the Source Vulnerability Assessment category due to lack of acknowledgement of catchment and source water mitigation. The proposed guidance will consider these important elements.

Observational catchment monitoring will also be a focus of the approach. Observations by trained and experienced catchment rangers (or equivalent) have the capacity to provide lead indicators prior to water quality monitoring detecting an impact. In some cases information to support these lead indicators may be sourced from regional GIS or other data collection agencies. Best practice observational monitoring will provide surety and ongoing evidence relating to catchment sanitary condition and, by inference, treatment process adequacy. The outcome will describe how to develop programs of ongoing ‘operational monitoring’ of catchment sanitary condition as well as providing guidance on ‘process control’ for catchment management preventive measures.

Governance and Project Execution

A Project Advisory Committee from water industry professionals with relevant expertise will provide overall governance of the project.

5. DELIVERY RISKS

5.1 Project Delivery Risks (Key risks that could impact the delivery of the project and how they will be managed)

Risk Mitigation Action Required (if ‘yes’ please provide details)

Loss of key staff

Yes: • Advise WaterRA of time needed to replace staff, nominate alternative. • Two key project workers are nominated that can largely cover the scope of

the project so that the project does not rest with just one project worker.

Loss of key funding

Yes: • Arrange meeting with WaterRA. • Curtail and adapt scope to fit within budget. • Stop work early and produce deliverables based on work to date.

Unexpected task duration

Yes: • Appropriate scoping of project. • Management of project expectations and consultation process. • Review and adapt project timing plan.

Difficult reaching consensus with stakeholders

Yes: • Clear and detailed project plan. • Communication throughout project with stakeholders. • Targeted consultation process (through teleconferences and discussion

papers) to resolve any differences of opinion. • Utilising the leadership of the Project Advisory Committee.

5.2 Does the project require ethics approval?


No

5.3 Identification of Background IP, Potential Project IP & Student Involvement WaterRA allows limited access to the intellectual property to its member organisations – this may impact your plans to use the IP in the future (e.g. publication, commercialisation) so please list any constraints here. List of Background IP WSAA Manual for the Application of Health-Based Treatment Targets

Owner of Background IP Water Services Association of Australia

List of Project IP WaterRA Catchment Assessment Guideline

Owner of Project IP Water Research Australia Limited.

Student IP None noted but the project would lend itself well to student involvement, e.g. for Masters or Honours projects.

6. PROJECT SCHEDULE

6.1 Project Schedule (Please complete in Excel template – RES FOR 02 - PART B) Refer to Excel workbook

7. PROJECT FINANCIALS 7.1 Source of Funds (Please complete in Excel template – RES FOR 02 - PART B) Refer to Excel workbook 7.2 Expenditure Summary (Please complete in Excel template – RES FOR 02 - PART B) Refer to Excel workbook

7.3 Project Expenditure Summary • Salaries: based on daily rates of $1,650 for cash contributions to fund project workers. • Operating: the operating expenses (insurances, power, information technology, superannuation,

leave, office supplies and administrative support etc.) are covered in the overheads on the salary costs.

• Consumables: the consumables (paper, stationery, handouts etc.) are covered in the overheads on the salary costs.

• Travel: Travel events for the training events and consultations are costed with an allowance of up to $1,200 per event per worker based on an estimate of up to $650 for flights, $300 for accommodation and subsistence and $250 for ground transport).

• Other: none. (as identified by the Project Leader) • Assets: No specific assets are to be purchased in order to complete this project. • Technology Transfer and Communications activities (preparation of fact sheets, workshops): These

activities are covered among the project tasks and are supported from the salaries, operating, consumables and travel costs, identified above.


8. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AND COMMUNICATION

8.1 Stakeholder Communications Plan for dissemination of progress and results (Forums and mechanisms for dissemination of research findings to WaterRA and its members, other important stakeholders, and the broader water industry)

Key Message Who Action Stakeholder Means Frequency Budget

Milestones 6 and 7: consultation on results of literature review relating to surface water and groundwater approaches. To draw upon industry guidance in planning the recommended approaches to help guide production of the final deliverables.

Project Team

Project participants

Workshops (one surface water and one groundwater focused) with video and dial in options for participants that can’t get to the workshops

WaterRA members

Workshop

Dial-in options

July 2017 $10,650

Information and awareness session on findings of literature review and consultation

Project Team

WaterRA

Short session as the WaterRA Research Symposium (July 2017 Melbourne) – mid project

Water RA Members

Presentation

Findings of project WaterRA Presentation of findings at State Node meetings

WaterRA Members

Presentations September 2017 $21,300

How to use the guidelines developed as part of the project

Project Team Develop training module and participant learning materials (under train-the-trainer approach). Conduct train-the-trainer workshops

WaterRA Members

Non-members on fee-for-service basis

Workshop

Project Summary Project Leader Project summary report WaterRA Members

Document


Attachment A: Supporting Information – Capability and capacity to deliver

(Appendix data) Project Team Commitments to Existing WaterRA Projects

Name Organisation Project Title Commitment FTE (%)

Dr Daniel Deere Water Futures N/A Nil

Karla Billington Naturallogic N/A Nil

(Appendix data) Capability of Research Team (Capability of the research team in the proposed research field (e.g. recent publications, grants etc.). Details of relevant and significant publications and research grants.

Dr Daniel Deere – Director and Microbiologist Water Futures

Dan Deere has over 20 years experience in water quality management and has worked across Australia and internationally in potable water supply and recycling projects. Dan has extensive experience in working with WaterRA and CRCs developing research reports and guidance. Dan currently works as a consultant providing support to water utilities and associated agencies in relation to water quality management. Most of his work is conducted for WaterRA member water utilities which provides him with an understanding of their needs. In addition he conducts work for international development and aid organisations such as the World Health Organization, Asian Development Bank and the UK and Australian aid agencies. Dan sits on a range of committees including having worked with WSAA in the development of the HBT guidance and on the Water Quality Advisory Committee and HBT Sub-committee that is updating the ADWG to include HBTs for the NHMRC. Previous roles of relevance held by Dan include the following:

• seven years as the Catchments Program Leader for the CRC for Water Quality and Treatment;

• four years as the Principal Scientist and Manager of Science and Research Branch for Sydney Catchment Authority;

• two years as Water Quality Manager for South East Water in Melbourne; and

• five years as a PhD student and then post-doctoral research fellow studying pathogen fate and transport in water at the UK Institute of Freshwater Ecology in the UK and as part of a research team based at Macquarie University, UNSW and Sydney Water in Sydney.

Karla Billington - Director and Principal Water Resource Management Consultant

Working across a number of water-resource related agencies and as a consultant, Karla has over the past 20 years become recognised as an authority in water resource management and catchment risk assessment and management planning, both in South Australia and within national circles. She is an active member of the Australian Water Association (AWA) and is currently a committee member of the (AWA’s) Catchment Management Network.

Widely recognised as a leading advisor on catchment water quality and risk management, Karla has undertaken various projects including the consideration of risks to drinking water supplies (with a particular focus on pathogen management); risks associated with climate change and the impacts on water security and integrated water management plans. Based on an understanding of risk, Karla has developed various risk mitigation projects with a focus on quantifying the risk, modelling mitigation options, undertaking community consultation / engagement and quantifying the benefits of the mitigation actions.

Karla has also gained experience in development planning policies and the application of such policies to individual cases. Specifically, Karla has developed case material for several development appeal court cases, advocating for the protection of drinking water supplies.

Karla has also been engaged as an independent technical reviewer of major water management plans, water management policy documents and monitoring plans.

For more details please review http://naturallogic.org and https://au.linkedin.com/in/karlambillington


http://naturallogic.org/

Collaborative history

The project team has worked together previously on numerous projects for the CRC Water Quality and Treatment, WaterRA and other organisations. Recently Dan and Karla have been completing Source Vulnerability Assessments as part of HBT projects for NSW Health (for Clarence Valley Council, Bega Shire Council and Kempsey Shire Council) and for Hunter Water, North Central Catchment Management Authority and Coliban Water. This background provides the team with experience working together and a familiarity with the challenges facing WaterRA members in conducting catchment assessments.


WaterRA Project Template

RES FOR 02 - Part B Core Projects Template

Print date: 22/12/2016

Page: 1 of 3

Project Budget

Project Title: Good Practice Guide to Catchment Sanitary Surveys and Operational Monitoring Start Date:3rd April 2017

Duration (days) Due Date

Water FuturesEmail confirming

acceptance from WaterRAAchievement Criteria: Review report Milestone 1-5), based on exception, omssions of publications or key

information.

5

Milestone: Critical review and analysis of operational monitoring literature and publications - regarding

groundwater. 3 19/05/2017 Water FuturesEmail confirming

acceptance from WaterRAAchievement Criteria: Review report Milestone 1-5), based on exception, omssions of publications or key

4

Milestone: Critical review and analysis of operational monitoring literature and publications - regarding

surface water.

Achievement Criteria: Review report Milestone 1-5), based on exception, omssions of publications or key

Email confirming

acceptance from WaterRA

Email confirming


Email confirming


Timelines and Responsibility

Criteria for Acceptance

Email confirming


Email confirming


Email confirming


Email confirming


Email confirming

acceptance from WaterRAWater Futures

Water Futures

Water Futures

Water Futures

Organisation

Responsible

Water Futures

Water Futures

Water Futures

Water Futures

6

4 19/05/2017

Water FuturesEmail confirming


6.1 Project Schedule (Part A)

11 10 25/09/2017Achievement Criteria: Development of a training module and participate learning materials (under a train the

trainer approach) and deliver train-the-trainer sessions in three states and provide a short session as the

WaterRA Research Symposium (July 2017 Melbourne).

10Milestone: Final report ready for publication.

4 1/09/2017Achievement Criteria: Review report completed to satisfaction of project stakeholders.

2 14/07/2017

Achievement Criteria: Key learning regarding drivers, barriers and capacity to meet the HBT and ADWG

6

Milestone: Consultation and discussions with water utilitlies regarding relevant approaches used for surface

water assessment, will be facilitated through workshops. 3 14/07/2017

Achievement Criteria: Key barriers, knowledge gaps and interpretation issues identifed.

9

Milestone: Review of draft guidance document among WaterRA members and industry representaitves,

through the deleivery of targeted teleconferences, discussion papers (on signficant issues) and collective

feedback.6 18/08/2017

Achievement Criteria: Review report completed to satisfaction of stakeholders, with workshop to discuss

8

Milestone: Draft guidance document, bring together Australia’s extensive expertise in sanitary survey,

catchment monitoring and catchment management approaches. 20 14/07/2017

Achievement Criteria: Draft guidance document.

6 19/05/2017

3Milestone: Critical review and analysis of sanitary survey literature and publications - regarding groundwater.

19/05/2017

1

Milestone: Critical review of approaches to sanitary survey and obervational monitoring, to identify those

with appropriate application to HBT assessments. 2 19/05/2017



No.Milestone

(Please include a short title and descriptive text as appropriate)

2Milestone: Critical review and analysis of sanitary survey literature and publications - regarding surface water.

7

Milestone: Consultation and discussions with water utilitlies regarding relevant approaches used for

groundwater assessment, will be facilitated through workshops.

Milestone: Knowledge transfer via training sessions and research presentation.

Page 1 of 3




Page: 2 of 3

Salaries(use 1.8 multiplier)

ConsumablesConsultants

Fees/ServicesExpenses Capital Assets Total Cash

Project Member

Name and

Organisation*

Salaries(use 2.9

multiplier)

Equi

pme

nt

Other Total In-Kind

1 3,300$ 3,300$ WaterFutures/

Naturallogic-$ 3,300$









6 4,950$ $1,200 6,150$ WaterFutures/


7 3,300$ $1,200 4,500$ WaterFutures/


8 33,000$ 33,000$ WaterFutures/






11 16,500$ $4,800 21,300$ WaterFutures/


11 13,900$ WaterRA Mgt

Fee13,900$

130,000$ -$

Project Total (cash + in kind)=

Expenditure (cash) project total = Expenditure (in kind) project total =

130,000$

* If there is more than one staff member contributing in-kind to this project, please insert additional rows per milestone to include each staff member and their associated in-kind contribution

7.2 Project Schedule (Part B)

No.

Expenditure (Cash) ($) Expenditure (in-kind) ($)

Total Milestone Budget ($)

(cash + in kind)

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Page: 3 of 3

Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind

$0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0

Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind Cash In Kind

$116,100 $116,100 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

$0 $0

Salaries

Consultant Fees

Consumables

Expenses

Total

7.3 Expenditure

Summary (total dollars expended only to be

included in this table)

Amount ($)Total

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

7.1 Source of Funds (all fund sources for life

of project)

Amount ($)Total

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4

Assets

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

Organisation

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project plan: guide to sanitary surveys and operational

Documents