eFlash #454

Date: 16-Oct-2020

1. Atherton Conference – Thank you!

Last week we held our first attempted “hybrid” event in Atherton, hosted by Tablelands Regional Council. While maintaining COVID distancing requirements was a little challenging, our hands have never been cleaner with the number of disinfecting wipes used. The feedback from the representatives able to attend in person was excellent and the presentation program was high-class.

We did experience a number of issues with the online event. Nineteen people joined us virtually for the occasion and we greatly appreciate their patience while we learn about the challenges of testing hardware and software at a new site. There were a few audio issues in particular, apologies to Adrian Wellington from Dial Before You Dig whose video presentation was able to be heard on site, but not online. It is available here and we encourage you to catch up and consider taking advantage of the pre-excavation management course being offered by DBYD free of charge. Other session videos are available here.

The demonstrations/ virtual tour worked well and participants seemed to enjoy the trivia competition at the end of the day, cut a little short thanks to the webinar software deciding to have an early mark. Fortunately it happened at the end of the day.

We are looking at hosting the next similar event in Goondiwindi (small communities forum) in February. In between now and then we will purchase and trial some new audio hardware to aim for a seamless event.

Thanks to sponsors Dial Before You Dig, Royce Water Technologies and Aquatec Maxcon, whose support helped us to offer a free event to members at a time when professional development and travel budgets have been significantly squeezed, if not wiped altogether.

Thanks again to our exceptional hosts in Tablelands, and to all of the presenters for taking the time to prepare some great content. We’ve got a long list of linkages to make and with a bit more confidence in the tech, hope we can attract a big audience state-wide for the next event.

2. National Water Taste Test

Good luck to Livingstone Shire Council when it represents Queensland in the Ixom 2020 Australia’s Best Tasting Tap Water on Wednesday 21 October. WIOA is hosting the national water taste test as part of its Virtual Water event, with the winner to be judged and announced at 1.45pm (Queensland time).

Water from Livingstone Shire Council’s Woodbury Water Treatment Plant was voted as Queensland’s best tasting tap water in qldwater’s 2020 Sigura Best of the Best Queensland Water Taste Test held in Brisbane last month. A sample of Livingstone’s top drop will compete against the winning samples from other state water taste tests with the winning sample going on to represent Australia in the international competition.

Access to virtual water to watch the announcement is now FREE for all to attend, and this includes access to the videos from previous days in the On-Demand section of the Auditorium. Individuals just need to register in advance at https://www.virtualwater.com.au/.

3. Assessing and Managing Water Quality of Temporary Waters

Guidance on assessing and managing water quality in temporary waters has been published on the ANZG (2018) website, and can be accessed here.

Many of Australia’s inland waters can be classified as temporary in some way. In particular, the document:

defines temporary waters; and
provides guidance on:

the use of conceptual models to consolidate understanding of water quality issues in temporary waters, including examples;
the types and selection of appropriate water and sediment quality indicators for temporary waters; and
monitoring water quality in temporary waters and setting water quality objectives.

The guidance provided in this document should be used in conjunction with the Australian and New Zealand Guidelines for Fresh and Marine Water Quality (ANZG 2018).

4. WSAA Webinar – Integrated Water Management

On 19 October WSAA is launching the full version of its recently released summary paper – Integrated Water Management: Principles and Best Practice for Water Utilities.

Integrated Water Management (IWM) is a planning approach that assists water utilities and other stakeholders with interests and responsibilities in the water cycle to optimise water management, liveability and the circular economy.

Join WSAA and authors Rob Skinner and Paul Satur from the Monash Sustainable Development Institute (MSDI) for the launch of Integrated water management: Principles and best practice for water utilities. While IWM involves a large range of stakeholders, this important paper provides a set of principles and best practice outcomes for water utilities looking to improve how they apply an IWM approach to their planning.

The paper includes nine IWM case studies from around Australia that demonstrate the best practice outcomes.

The summary version of this paper was released in August.

This public webinar event will include an overview and key take-homes of the paper, discussion with key industry representatives and plenty of time for Q&A.

Feel free to share this registration link with colleagues and others in the industry.

Topic: IWM Principles and Best Practice for Water Utilities

Date: Oct 19, 2020 02:00 PM in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney

Description: Join WSAA and authors Rob Skinner & Paul Satur from Monash Sustainable Development Institute, to discuss this important addition to the toolkit for water utilities wishing to apply an IWM approach to their planning and projects.

Platform: Online (Zoom)

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

5. Essentials Webinar October Wrap

The 15^th webinar in the series happened yesterday with three excellent presentations.

Kingsford Smith Drive Upgrade

Noel Ralph & Nadine Story (Urban Utilities) 

The S1 catchment is the largest sewage catchment in Brisbane, serving a population of 800,000 that feeds into the main pumping station serving Luggage Point STP. The network includes three 1575mm diameter critical sewers that had not been inspected for more than 8 years. The presentation provides a fascinating insight into the high degree of coordination across multiple teams that was required to safely shut down the sewers to conduct a CCTV condition assessment on the sewer, and bring the system back on line without impacts to the network, the infrastructure, the environment or the Luggage Point STP.         

Biosolids to Bioproducts

Luisa Marghales (Unitywater) & Glenn Dale (Verterra)

Unitywater produces 84,000 wet tonnes of biosolids that must be transported and managed each year. In 2013, Unitywater entered into a joint collaboration with Verterra and Suez to investigate reducing the cost of biosolids disposal each year through alternative management means. Luisa and Glenn describe the results of a Controlled Aeration Static Pile Composting (CASP) trial that seeks to unlock the value of biosolids compost, both in avoided disposal costs and as the beneficiated product, which is a complete agricultural fertiliser.

CRC-p the WSAA Perspective

James Gardner (WSAA)

James is the WSAA Program Lead for the Smart Linings CRC, which is a collaborative program to improve the understanding of the performance of lining systems and how utilities can get the best out of them and their existing assets. The program is a broad industry-wide collaboration with utilities providing the test sites for manufacturers and applicators to install the products, which are then tested though the university collaborators. The information feeds into the development of WSAA Industry Codes and Standards. James provides an update on the progress of the project which is nearing completion.

Thanks again to all presenters, recordings are available at https://www.qldwater.com.au/essentials-webinar-series and PDF copies of the presentations will be included when available.

6. Next Essentials Webinar

Our next Essentials Webinar (#16) will be held on Thursday 26 November at 10am… note this one is a week later than normal to avoid a conflict with the AWA Queensland Conference.

Our esteemed presenters are:

Luke Sawtell (Urban Utilities, Water Services Sector Group) – the Trusted Information Sharing Network (TISN) Mutual Aid Guidelines
Sen Vigneswaran (Townsville City Council) – TigerNix Asset Failure Predictive Analytics
Jeanette Harold (Fraser Coast Regional Council) – Lagoon pH licence amendments

Hope you can join us, please register here.

7. Did you know!

Did you know that all our previous Essentials Webinars are available to watch in your own time from our website at https://qldwater.com.au/essentials-webinar-series

qldwater is a business unit of IPWEAQ

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