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September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter

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Page 1: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter

Page 2: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

President’s Report by Matt Dawson

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Some of you might be aware that the AWA Executive, Board and Branch Committees are working on updating the Strategic Plan. One of the key themes I am getting out of this is “member engagement”. One of the biggest measures of success for AWA is the level of engagement of the members in activities.

I am especially proud of the engagement of the Queensland Branch at the moment.

In late July we had yet another excellent NQWater Conference in Cairns. This event is fast becoming a model nationally and surely our NQ members are some of the most engaged in the country. There is certainly much pride and passion in the industry in NQ and AWA is very pleased to support it. We had over 120 delegates, some excellent keynotes, a highly relevant program and an excellent combination of trade displays and an innovation forum. At lunch on the second day, I was already catching conversations about next year’s NQWater in Townsville………is that called “pre-engagement”?! Watch this space!

I have been particularly blown away by the response we have received to the Queensland Water Awards program. We received 25 high quality entries across the 6 awards with some intense competition of up to eight nominations in one category. I’m sure our judges were a bit overwhelmed for a little while with all of this engagement, but all in all we have a strong field of finalists lined up. By the time you are reading this, the winners will have been announced at the Gala Dinner on 18 September. The most important outcome from this will be the selection of the Maroons to represent Queensland in the national awards program, announced at Ozwater next year…….……”Queenslander!”

Following hot on the heels of the awards submissions was the closing of the call for abstracts for the QWater conference to be held in Brisbane in

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November. Our judging panel has had a real mission here, working through more than 36 potential presenters to come up with the final program. Please don’t feel bad if your abstract isn’t selected, given this level of interest. It will result in a very high quality program.

Some of you might notice the change of format with the QWater Conference this year. After much debate the committee has decided to run the conference in Brisbane this year as opposed to the traditional weekend / Coast format. This isn’t necessarily a permanent move, but we want to try to make it easy for as many members to engage as possible and use QWater as a feature in their own professional development. We hope this works out well and provides us with another option in the conference cycle in future years.

As always, if there are other topics that you want to engage on, please feel free to send an email on [email protected] with your ideas or comments or catch up with things on the web site at http://www.awa.asn.au/QLD.aspx .

Page 3: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

2015 Queensland Water Award Winners

Award Winners Research Innovation Award Water Literacy in Australia - The University of Queensland and Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities

Program Innovation Award Queensland Urban Utilities Innovation Program - Queensland Urban Utilities

Infrastructure Project Innovation Award Suncoast-Coolum-Maroochydore Sewerage Treatment Plant Reconfiguration – Unitywater

Regional Service Award Rob Saunders, GHD

Distinguished Service Award Helen Stratton - Griffith University

Undergraduate Water Prize Scott Roy - SMEC Australia

Young Water Professional Tim Wong - SMEC Australia

Water Professional of the Year David Brooker - Mackay Regional  Council

David Brooker

Dr Helen Stratton

Rob Saunders

Note : Tim Wong could not make the Dinner and the award was accepted by Bob Tilbury.

Scott Roy

Page 4: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Research Innovation

Infrastructure Project Innovation Award

Program Innovation Award

Page 5: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

QLD YWP Introducing the new Qld YWP Committee and its first activities

The Queensland Young Water Professional Committee would like to introduce its new committee: Alycia Moore – President, Abraham Negaresh – Vice President & Professional Development Coordinator, Matt Sorenson – Secretary, Alexander Wise – Research and Education Coordinator, Charlotte Spliethoff – Communications Coordinator, Christina Lockett, Ehsan Eftekhari, Elena Mejia Likosova, Robert Goedecke, Ruipu Yang and Thakshila Balasuriya. Alycia said: “I am proud to be the YWP President and our new committee is committed to continue providing value to young water professionals in the water industry!”

The new committee kicked off with a successful university career event at QUT on 21st July (see picture above). The YWP presented at the 3rd year course Water & Wastewater Treatment Engineering to about 150 to 200 students. Alex Wise introduced the students to AWA and the YWPs and Alycia Moore provided valuable career advice. Jim Mitchell asked the students “How do we know we’ve put the right infrastructure in the right place” and “How do we balance non-financial objectives”. The discussions continued over pizza afterwards. Most students had not heard of AWA and the YWPs before. The event was a great success and attracted several new AWA student members. Many thanks to Dr Jay Rajapakse for the opportunity to present to his students!

We would like to invite you all to attend the AWA Amazing Race - Saturday 17 October 2015! Most will have seen the television show - now it is your chance to participate in a taxing mental and physical race across Brisbane, topped with a quirky water industry slant. Come along to lead your team to victory!

By Charlotte Spliethoff

On the 23rd and 24th July 127 delegates including a good representative of trade delegates attended the annual AWA North Queensland Conference at the Pullman International Hotel in Cairns.

The theme of the Conference was ‘Driving Efficiency in the Water Service Delivery’ and delegates were presented with 18 papers and keynote addresses ranging in topic from water security, pricing policies and water and wastewater treatment. Pat Flanagan’s keynote address outlined the challenges faced with the design of the proposed Aquis Resort, Angus Macdonald’s paper discussed radical ways of revising water pricing, Jason Jetten and Ben Hall’s prize winning paper dealt with the problems of optimising the Karumba MBR plant while Amanarth Reddy in addition to discussing blue-green algal problems provided a synopsis on Indian cricket.

A popular feature of the conference was the Innovation and Product Showcase where suppliers were able to give a brief overview of their innovative products in the industry. This showcase will be a feature of the upcoming QWater Conference in Brisbane in November.

Unusually for the time of year the Cairns weather was misbehaving and intermittent showers moved the Thursday night Conference Dinner from poolside to undercover but true to form Cairns turned on the good weather for Friday and the weekend.

Many thanks to Sharon, the organising committee and of course the sponsors for producing a great conference, next year’s conference will be held in Townsville where the rivalry between the three North Queensland centres is sure to produce a similar excellent conference.

North Queensland Regional Conference Cairns 23-24 July Cairns (Photos next page)

Page 6: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

North Queensland Regional Conference Cairns 23-24 July Cairns Photos

Thanks to our sponsors Cairns Regional Council, Trility, KSB, Steel Mains, Sunwater and AECOM

Page 7: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Jason Devitt Director of Engineering and Commercial Infrastructure Mackay Regional Council

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Jason Devitt is the Director of Engineering and Commercial Infrastructure for the Mackay Regional Council. He joined Mackay City Council in 1995 following graduation as a civil engineer from the Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria. When he first joined Council it had just amalgamated with the former Pioneer Shire Council to become the Mackay City Council. Mackay Regional Council was later formed in 2008 with the amalgamation of the Mackay City Council, Mirani Shire Council and the Sarina Shire Council.

When he joined Mackay City Council, he was the first engineer appointed to the water business apart from the City Engineer. This meant that he was thrown in the deep end and thus had a steep learning curve in all facets of water infrastructure planning, design and delivery with a significant portion of the delivery work being done by day labour. He was appointed the Manager of Mackay Water in 2001. In 2006 the high regional growth required a large program of wastewater infrastructure investment and he was taken off-line for two and one half years to manage the $155m Mackay Water Recycling Project. This major program of works was a DBO project involving the design and upgrading of the Mackay North and South Wastewater Treatment Plants, a major reuse scheme and major transfer mains. Returning to mainstream Council business following completion of the Water Recycling Project he was appointed the Director of Mackay Water in 2009 and Director in charge of all Council’s engineering activities, including roads and drainage, in 2013. In this role he is responsible for 450 staff and operational and capital expenditure respectively of $150M and $90m/annum.

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In his role as the Director of Mackay Water, Jason actively promoted the introduction of the use of real time water meters using automated meter reading (AMR) technology to manage and monitor water demand. Real time metering commenced in October 2012 and there are now 35,000 units installed. Council is now rolling out a metering program for the sewerage network to enable a better understanding of flow and in particular surcharges as a result of inflow/infiltration.

Whilst growth has slowed considerably in the region following the decline after the mining boom, Council will have some major investments in water and wastewater treatment in the next ten years. They are currently investigating ways of deferring these projects to minimise the financial impact on ratepayers.

In his non-working hours, Jason and his wife Nanette, devote most of their spare time to managing their four children Jackson, Grace, Ben and Luke. Jason says he was a keen AFL player and cricketer in his youth and still retains a strong interest in AFL. He says he does enjoy an occasional game of golf.

Page 8: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Dr Lynne Powell lives in Cairns and works for the Cairns Regional Council as the Sustainability Coordinator Water and Waste. Talking to Lynne, it is clear that it has been a long and interesting path for her to get there.

She graduated from the University of Newcastle with a science degree majoring in biology and chemistry, courtesy of a traineeship with Hunter Water. Following graduation she took up a job doing environmental monitoring with the Office of the Supervising Scientist in Jabiru for the Ranger Uranium Mine in the Northern Territory. Being supercharged by this experience she took up a position with the Australian Antarctic Division and did two working trips to the Antarctic, one for 15 months, which included one winter and two summers and one for five months over one summer period.

During the first tour there was considerable rebuilding work going on and staff numbers during the winter period had peaked at about 30. Lynne reports that during her winter they had the “record” ratio of women to men with 1:5! The winter work was hard with temperatures dropping to -41oC without any wind chill factor accounted for. She recalls having to carry out sampling work at Deep Lake (about 9 km from Davis) on a monthly basis during winter. This lake has a salinity of 22% and because of this, remained unfrozen at a water temperature of -19oC during winter. During her visits to the Antarctic she met her husband, Tony who was a radio operator at Davis Station. Despite this distraction she managed to commence a PhD with the University of Tasmania and continued on with her study on completion of her contract with the Antarctic Division, completing the PhD in 1998. The topic of her thesis was ‘The ecology and taxonomy of Synechococcus from saltwater lakes in the Vestfold Hills, Antarctica’.

After the Antarctic her next job was in the Northern Territory with the EPA and then in Tasmania with the EPA where she was responsible for managing policy and legislation development. She says these experiences transitioned her to a government type role.

An opportunity came up with her current job in Cairns and she took the position and moved there in 2008 for a change of lifestyle. In this role she assists the Water and Waste Department comply with environmental and cultural heritage legislation whilst also developing and managing environmental systems. The area serviced by Council is bounded by World Heritage National Parks with strong Aboriginal cultural heritage values. Part of the job has been assisting in the consultation with the Traditional Owners where there is potential conflict with infrastructure works proposed by Council.

She feels that her job really provides her with an opportunity to “make a difference” by helping to reduce the impact of Council’s works on the environment. She says each day brings a new challenge and she loves working back in a more operational environment. What she finds difficult working in Cairns is the remoteness from major urban centres and the lack of opportunity to engage with other professionals. Nevertheless she has been keen to support AWA and the EIANZ in developing a local presence. She was awarded the Best Paper award at Ozwater 2012 for her paper “Cultural Heritage Partnerships”.

Lynne and Tony have one daughter Kate. Lynne has actively participated in bringing science to Kate’s school through the CSIRO Scientists in Schools Program. During their spare time they love to spend time in remote places having holidayed in Central Australia, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Top End including Kakadu and Gregory National Parks as well as Kangaroo Island and Lord Howe Island. They love walking, bird watching and snorkelling as well as just being in quite calm places.

Dr Lynne Powell Sustainability Co-Ordinator Cairns Regional Council

Page 9: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

The Queensland Water Regional Alliance Program (QWRAP) is an LGAQ program that has been underway for a number of years under the management of the Queensland Water Directorate since 2011. The QWRAP promotes regional collaboration between local governments for the urban water sector and has been funded by the State through the Department of Energy and Water Supply. Four pilot regions self-selected to explore opportunities for regional collaboration, these being:

• Outback Regional Water Alliance involving Longreach, Boulia, Barcoo, Barcaldine and Diamantina Councils;

• Whitsunday Isaac Mackay (WIM) Water Alliance involving Whitsunday, Mackay and Isaac Councils.

• Wide Bay Burnett ROC involving North Burnett, Bundaberg, South Burnett, Gympie and Fraser Coast Councils; and

• Far North Queensland ROC involving Cairns, Douglas, Cook, Tablelands, Mareeba, Cassowary Coast, Croydon and Etheridge Councils.

The Outback Regional Water Alliance has been in operation for the longest period and has made significant progress to achieving improved collaboration with the following key initiatives being undertaken so far:

• Joint review of drinking water quality management;

• Collaborative reporting for public benchmarking;

• Regional price benchmarking; • Joint training initiatives for operators.

The Outback Group has also recently gone to tender for a contract for cleaning of reservoirs using divers. This initiative should save water and reduce the cost of cleaning through bulk purchase.

The Wide Bay Burnett group is currently scoping an Alliance structure for their region and is proposing to call tenders on a regional basis for sewer relining.

The Far North Group is in discussions at the moment in regard to procurement of smart water meters, and working on ways a standard regional approach could benefit participating councils.

Whilst the collaboration initiatives will vary from region to region depending on needs, the QWRAP will expand the number of regions involved in future years and will continue consideration of alternative regional service models.

Queensland Water Regional Alliance Program (QWRAP)

Page 10: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Jim Pruss and Kate Lanskey from Seqwater recently presented an update on Seqwater’s progress in developing their 30 Year Water Security Program at an AWA Breakfast Meeting.

Kate explained that what has been completed to date is Version 1 of the Plan. This will be further refined to Version 2 by 2017. Version 1 of the Water Security Program has been prepared on a very tight time frame, with the State releasing the Level of Service objectives for water security in July 2014, and the Water Security Program demonstrating compliance against these objectives completed by July 2015.

Version 1 of the plan deals with population and demand estimates, evaluation of existing source yields and constraints, assessment of transfer system capacity under various operating scenarios, identification of new source options and options to enhance existing sources and testing of demand, supply and system operations options.

The Plan has identified the following:

• Water demand is estimated to grow from just over 315,000 ML/a in 2015 to around 520,000 ML/a by 2045. This is significantly down from the 2010 Water Strategy Report estimate of over 800,000 ML/a at 2045;

• The existing Level of Service (LOS) system yield has been estimated to be 415,000 ML/a assuming a per capita residential demand increasing to 185 L/person/day by 2018/19. This is down from the 2010 Water Strategy Report estimate of 525,000 ML/a;

• In the absence of a severe drought, major new infrastructure works required in the next 15 years is limited to existing infrastructure, including a new offtake for the Northern Pipeline Interconnector, the reconfiguration of the Aspley Pump Station to enable water to be pumped in a northerly direction and upgrades to existing Water Treatment Plants;

• Based on these conditions, no new source are required for south east Queensland within the next 15 years, however the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme may be required to be brought on line under drought conditions if water storages deplete to 40% of their capacity;

• The next new source will be required in the northern region around 2033, although the range is likely to be between 2029 and 2039 depending on the growth in demand;

• There are a number of source options available for development of the next source, including the following: o Surface water options (harvesting water from

the Mary River with and without raising Borumba Dam wall, and using Wyaralong Dam with the construction of a water treatment plant);

o Desalination plant options (northern, central and upgrading of the Gold Coast Desalination Plant);

o Water treatment plant upgrade options (Noosa, Mount Crosby and Molendinar);

o Recycled water options.

Version 2 of the Water Security Program will involve:

• Consultation with stakeholders and the community about Version 1;

• Developing drought response options; • Continuing planning for standalone communities; • Further exploring options for decentralised

schemes and non structural options; • Exploring land availability for the future.

Page 11: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Operators Corner A two way street By Peter Griffiths

When the Editor asked me to write about how I had been able to provide assistance to operations staff with wastewater treatment problems, my initial reaction was to think of how much operations staff have taught me solutions to “engineering” problems. So, for the first of this series, I would like to pay small homage to the many operations staff that have taught me since I came out of Uni with a bit of paper that said that I had a degree and now go and learn!!

A number of years back (14 to be precise), yours truly was involved in a project with the editor to tackle a problem that has plagued most activated sludge treatment plants across the world; the dreaded algae growth on secondary clarifier launders. The “green weed” contaminates final effluent samples, is unsightly and can severely interfere with final effluent disinfection amongst other nuisances.

The project required a literature survey and a global survey of engineers, including their contract operations teams, to identify the most effective means of controlling or preventing algae growth on clarifier launders. Numerous responses were received however, the same old themes came up; brushes (if you don’t mind replacing them weekly), covers (the civil engineering approach of, if it is unsightly-bury it) and launder sprays that leave nice race tracks in the algae at best. None of these were real alternatives to the hazardous and labour intensive solutions of operators regularly climbing into wet and slippery launders with watering cans of hypochlorite and a broom, spending hours scrubbing the launders clean whilst potentially inhaling some not particularly nice gases.

Fast forward a couple of years (circa 2003) and I am at a treatment plant with immaculately clean launders!!! How so, I ask? And then, the brilliantly simple answer was provided by the operators!!! The plant was one of my designs and, being the caring and sensitive sole that I am, I had specified a launder spray system to at least try and diminish the toils of my operator mates in keeping launders clean. As usual, it was an abject failure and I walked away with another bunch of operators left with a useless monument to engineering design.

However, operators don’t like to let things go to waste. With the aid of an electric power point timer from K Mart (you know, the ones that turn the lights on and off when you are on holidays), the spray was rigged to run only in the early hours of the morning during minimal or no flow periods when the sprays would impact on the algae and not the water flowing in the launder. Now, the spray system also included a Y strainer on the suction pipe with an end cap to permit removal and cleaning of the strainer. All you do (and this is the really clever bit) is drop a couple of swimming pool chlorine tablets in the strainer and, hey presto, you have a launder chlorine spray that sprays when there is no flow to deflect or dilute the chlorine from the algae and no one around to get a mist of chlorinated water. Full accolades to the operations team at Kawana on the Sunshine Coast. How to make an engineer’s folly look good.

Since then, I have become aware of a similar system developed at Mid Coast Water in NSW (Australians are an inventive mob). Very smart refinements have also been made for plants that still have low flows, even in the “wee” hours of the morning, by the team at Wetalla in Toowoomba.

The smarts just keep coming! We looked all over the world for a solution and only had to look in our own backyard. Maybe the problem was that we asked the engineers and not operators-after all, learning is usually a two way street!!!

Page 12: September Newsletter 2015 Compress rev1 - AWA Newsletter...September 2015 Queensland Branch Newsletter President’s Report by Matt Dawson 1 Some of you might be aware that the AWA

Upcoming Events

Wed, 14 Oct 2015 Optimising Operations: Modelling variable water qualities and quantities, Brisbane

Wed, 17 Oct 2015 YWP Amazing Race, Brisbane

11-12 Nov 2015 QWater’15, Brisbane

11 Nov 2015 Intellectual Property, Regulatory Compliance and Risks Masterclass, Brisbane

12 Nov 2015 Funding Strategy (Half Day) Masterclass, Brisbane

Australian Water Association PO Box 1148, Wynnum QLD 4178 Contact Sharon Ible Telephone 07 3396 4880 Mobile 0407 585 052 Email [email protected]

This newsletter has been compiled from information supplied; hence AWA cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy of any information so supplied or for any loss or damage, which may arise, from errors or omissions.

Thank you to all of the organisations who have sponsored and supported the AWA QLD Branch over the past year:

Editor: Rod Lehmann

We are looking for articles on your projects. Please contact Rod at [email protected] or Sharon Ible