eFlash #437
Date: 05-Jun-2020
Information for Water Industry Managers and Practitioners in the Queensland Water Industry
Weekly Update, essentials webinars – 4 June
Our ninth online “essentials” networking event happened yesterday.
“ColoSSoS” by Dan Deere – Water Futures Pty Ltd
Sewage surveillance for viral pathogens can offer a means to understand the prevalence of a virus in the community and has been used for many years to demonstrate Australia's polio-free status. Sewage surveillance for of SARS-CoV-2 entails representative sampling of wastewater to detect genetic material, consisting of fragments of the viral RNA. Active infections result in the shedding of virus into wastewater by multiple means including laundry, teeth brushing, handwashing and showering as well as more directly from vomit or faeces. Indications from studies in France and the Netherlands show that sewage surveillance results closely reflect community infections and may even provide an early warning trigger for health authorities. The national “ColoSSoS Project” – Collaboration on Sewage Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 – will track and monitor the presence of the virus in Australia, beginning with a project that is underway in Melbourne. Dan provides a rundown of the scope of the project and its activities in the current "pandemic phase" of operations and beyond.
“Microalgal and anaerobic water treatment at Helidon Regional STP with a focus on efficient nutrient recovery and greenhouse gas reduction” by Philip Keymar – Urban Utilities
Wastewater lagoons offer a relatively simple low cost, low maintenance wastewater treatment option for small communities, and are widely used with more than 600 ponds currently in Australia. However, they do suffer from some issues, offering relatively low BOD removal, no nutrient removal, low pathogen removal, and are prone to cyanobacteria blooms and greenhouse gas and odour emissions. Urban Utilities as part of a CRC-P project is conducting a trial at three sites to assess a high rate algal pond (HRAP) to improve water quality and greenhouse gas emissions outcomes from ponds. One of the sites at Helidon, Queensland will incorporate an upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) reactor with new HRAP ponds to be installed within the footprint of a disused wetland site to demonstrate the technology. Philip outlines the project background and plans for the Helidon site.
The recording of this webinar is now available on our new site at: https://qldwater.com.au/essentials-webinar-series with presentations at the same link.
Note there will be no event on 11 June. The next event will be on Thursday 18 June at 10am with the following speakers:
Prabhu Krishnasamy , Unitywater
“High-tech tools for high risk condition assessments”
Prabhu will provide an overview of a range of innovative technologies trialled by Unitywater in the interests of improving asset management and informing maintenance and renewal programs.
Daniel Muir, Urban Utilities
“Smart linings CRC learnings”
Urban Utilities is a partner in the WSAA led CRC-P activity, Smart Linings for Pipe and Infrastructure and Daniel will provide an update on both the overall program and the trials Urban Utilities has been undertaking. While sewer relining is commonplace throughout our sector, there is strong broader industry interest in the potential for these technologies in water networks.
Register for this event here
It would be advisable to test your connection, video and audio prior to the event, if you haven’t participated before. For more detailed instructions, click here.
Regional Water Coordinator WBBROC vacancy
The Wide Bay Burnett Regional Organisation of Councils Inc is seeking expressions of interest from a suitably qualified person to work 3 days per week to assist WBBROC establish a Regional Water Alliance, work with Councils and Government agencies to develop a Regional Water Strategy, liaise with other key stakeholders and to bed down the new organisation.
The successful applicant will need to have a current Queensland Driver’s licence and have the appropriate skills, including:
- Extensive knowledge and experience of regional local government.
- Experience and background in water and waste-water matters
- Good project management skills
- Strong negotiation and influencing skills.
For any questions regarding the role, please contact the WBBROC Executive Officer, Joe Veraa on 0417 475 149 or by email at info@wbbroc.org.au.
Applications close at 5pm on Monday 22 June, and should be clearly addressed to:
WBBROC Executive Officer
Download the position description here: https://wbbroc.org.au/water-coordinator-position-description-amended-may-2020/
This role is partly funded by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy through the QWRAP program.
WSAA Efficiency Survey – End Use Analysis
The WSAA Water Efficiency Network is conducting an end use study survey.
As you may be aware, water authorities around Australia have conducted many different types of research in order to better understand how their customers use water. Better knowing our customer’s use habits has many benefits, from improved water and sewer planning to better service delivery and – in our particular interest – enabling better water efficiency programs. However, our knowledge across the industry is varied, and comparisons of total water use across the country are difficult due to our different climatic and urban situations.
This project will build an understanding of the existing end use study data available across the country, with the intent of analysing this data as a whole, excluding outdoor water use, to compare indoor water use across Australia. Indoor water use provides a comparable basis between cities. This comparison will provide insight into each category of indoor end use, from appliance demand, to customer side leakage, shower duration, with the intent of understanding best practice for each category. It will enable water utilities to gain insights into their customers' indoor water demand compared with other cities and towns. These insights will enable more efficient design of demand management policies and programs.
This project will be a WSAA subscription project, with the scope and cost of the project depending on the feedback we receive from the survey. To enable the best outcomes, we are seeking input from all water authorities, large and small. If you have ever completed a study on customer end-use behaviour, or if you would be interested in seeing the results available when nation-wide data is collated, please complete our survey by Friday 19 June 2020.
The survey is available here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QJQ7HNP
If you have any questions, please contact either Roman Harasymow (Roman.Harasymow@watercorporation.com.au) or Sean Simpson (Sean.simpson@sew.com.au).
A note on data use – under WSAA, we will establish suitable data protection measures for the project based on the final scope of the project and the wishes of participating authorities.