eFlash #446
Date: 19-Aug-2020
In this edition: qldwater/WIOA Operator Award Winners|Sigura Taste Test – 3 weeks to go!|Sigura Taste Test – Game on Trivia!|Productivity Commission Deadline this Friday|Affiliated Organisations Announcements – Dial Before You Dig – Pre-Excavation Management Training|PFAS Basics Fact Sheet Updated|Essential Webinar Tomorrow|Did you know!
1. qldwater/WIOA Operator Award Winners
qldwater is pleased to announce the 2020 Queensland Operator Award winners in conjunction with WIOA. In the absence of traditional WIOA events, David Cameron announced the winners at WIOA’s Virtual Water event earlier today.
Congratulations to Benjamin Haddock from Southern Downs Regional Council who has been selected as the Young Operator of the Year. During his three years at council, he has worked as an Assistant Waste water Treatment Plant Operator and was an Assistant Operator at the Water Treatment Plant during the time council began carting water to Stanthorpe due to an extended drought. He has recently been promoted as an Operator at the Stanthorpe Waste water Treatment Plant and is now studying his Certificate IV in Water Industry Operations. Well done Benjamin!
The winner of the Queensland Operator of the Year (Civil/All-Rounder) Award is Brett Donald of Mackay Regional Council. Brett is a qualified Plumber and has worked for the Council for the past seven years. He recently completed his Certificate III in Water Industry Operations as part of the Regional Water Industry Worker Program, and has stepped up to support other participants in their training. Brett’s work ethic and approach to safety are a great example for others to follow. Well done Brett!
Both winners receive a trophy and funding towards professional development initiatives, with specific details to be negotiated subject to COVID-19 developments.
Congratulations and thank you to all those who were nominated for this year’s awards, we received some very impressive nominations across both categories.
Click here to find out more about our award winners.
Congratulations also to Mark Vairy from Mackay Regional Council for winning the AWA Queensland Operator of the Year Award for 2020. Well done Mark!
2. Sigura Taste Test – 3 weeks to go!
We have received 9 entries for this year’s Sigura Taste Test Competition! We will be in touch to arrange a Teams meeting with each entrant to hear more about the sample you have decided to enter – the source, the treatment and any other interesting bits of information that make you believe you can knock Mackay off their perch, and hopefully get the World title! The recording will be done in the same way as Stu was recorded, so nothing to be afraid of.
If you missed it previously, watch Stu lay down the challenge in this post, where he also outlines the secrets to success.
Remember to get your samples ready and ship two litres of your liquid gold to Level 1, 6 Eagleview Place, Eagle Farm by Wednesday, 9th September 2020.
HOT TIP: If you want your sample to taste pure and crisp, send your samples in glass bottles, not plastic! Don’t let a rookie error ruin your chances.
The event will be held through GoToWebinar – register here to lock it into your diary.
3. Sigura Taste Test – Game on Trivia!
How well do you know your Trivia? While the taste test judging is happening, we will be running a face-to-face and virtual game of Kahoot Trivia.
Do you think you’re the next Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking? Let's find out! It’s free to join.
If you would like to be a part of the Kahoot Trivia being held on Thursday 10th September 2020 at 3pm, please email enquiry@qldwater.com.au by Monday 31st August 2020 and a meeting request will be sent through, with instructions to follow closer to the day. You can play individually or as a team, completely up to you.
4. Productivity Commission Deadline this Friday
A reminder that submissions in response to the Productivity Commission’s Issues Paper on National Water Reform are due by Friday 21 August. Details and lodgement instructions are available here.
Many key industry stakeholders are preparing responses including WSAA, AWA, NSW and Victorian Water Directorates, and the LGAQ. qldwater’s submission will unfortunately not be available for review by members prior to lodgement. We have attempted to contact those expressing direct interest for further feedback following the webinar held on 23 July, however multiple authors have meant we’ve run out of time to collate and will be doing so over the next two days.
If you’d like to discuss any particular aspect of the Issues Paper or have a topic you’re keen to see addressed, please contact dcameron@qldwater.com.au or rfearon@qldwater.com.au as soon as possible.
From here, the Commission is expected to prepare a draft report to be released later in 2020 and there will be another opportunity to respond to it and its recommendations before a final report is published. The scope of this review includes the potential review of the National Water Initiative, so it is important to ensure Queensland issues are well-reflected.
Our submission will go into significant detail on relevant ‘information requests’ but at a high level, qldwater will propose that:
- the National Water Commission, or similar custodian should be reinstated to steer a reinvigorated National Water Initiative and support states and territories in its implementation;
- the new NWI should include a specific focus on urban water and sewerage services and the challenges of maintaining levels of service with the growing pressure of ageing infrastructure;
- the new NWI should further focus on small and unsustainable regional and remote services – regionally-specific studies dealing with minimum standards of service for all Australians, and the challenges of population decline.
5. Dial Before You Dig – Pre-Excavation Management Training
Dial Before You Dig Certification has been delivering Pre-Excavation Management Courses (PEMC) via webinars for the past five months, targeting all businesses which undertake works associated with excavation.
Utility assets continue to be damaged by workers each and every day and nine times out of ten the damage could have been prevented had the worker adhered to safe digging practices.
The PEMC provides excellent information and an end to end solution to avoiding striking buried pipes and cables.
Over the past five months over 500 supervisors/site managers have attended this training with the overall consensus that having attended this course will change the way in which participants approach working around buried utility infrastructure.
More information is available at: https://dbydlocator.com/pre-excavation-management-training/
6. PFAS Basics Fact Sheet Updated
We have released an update to the PFAS Basics Fact Sheet that was released last year. The revision includes updated information based on the NEMP 2.0 and the End Of Waste Code, both of which have been updated this year. The fact sheet provides some general background information on the what, why, where and how of PFAS.
The fact sheet can be downloaded from here: https://www.qldwater.com.au/resource_library_water_treatment
Through the Queensland Consortium for Research and Advocacy on Contaminants qldwater is developing a database of analysis of background levels of PFAS in Australia as an aid for councils that are impacted. If you are interested in joining the Consortium, please contact Louise LReeves@qldwater.com.au or Rob rfearon@qldwater.com.au.
7. Essential Webinar Tomorrow
The next 90-minute session will be held tomorrow – you can register using this link.
We have three speakers covering a diversity of topics:
- Jenna Baas from Sunwater will speak on "The Sunwater Cultural Journey", reprising her very well received presentation from the Water Skills Forum back in March.
- Dr Yarong Song from the Advanced Water Management Centre at UQ will outline her research "Protect Sewer: Investigate sewer corrosion using multidisciplinary techniques"
- Sean Askew from Bundaberg Regional Council will speak on "Our program management software – Monday.com. Capital delivery success…"
8. Did you know!
Did you know that SWIM has 11,995,405 SWIMlocal operations and 713,429 annual water and sewerage data measurements safely stored away? The full SWIMlocal data management software is now used by 45 Water Service Providers, 43 located in Queensland and two in New South Wales.
During 2018/2019 Queensland’s council‐owned service providers spent more than $2.15 billion operating the $40 billion worth of water and sewerage infrastructure under their control. These water and wastewater services are provided to around 2 million water connections and 1.8 million sewerage connections in Queensland.
There are over 43,740 km of water mains and 35,290 km of sewer mains in Queensland. Combined, that is enough main pipes to go around the Earth almost exactly twice.
Find out more information on SWIM here on qldwater website.
qldwater is a business unit of IPWEAQ
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