A new storage silo holding thousands of kilograms of lime has been installed and will go online in October 2016, as part of a multi-stage upgrade to Seqwater’s Landers Shute Water Treatment Plant in South East Queensland.
The new silo is part of a $7 million lime storage and dosing upgrade that will improve the plant’s capacity to cope with water quality challenges due to heavy rain.
The 100-tonne silo was trucked in from Deception Bay and set up at the Sunshine Coast plant in late June 2016.
The plant, located near Montville, draws water from Baroon Pocket Dam and provides 75 per cent of the Sunshine Coast’s drinking water.
The plant is part of the South East Queensland Water Grid and has the ability to send water as far north as Noosa and south to Brisbane’s northern suburbs.
Seqwater Acting Chief Executive Officer, Jim Pruss, said the lime upgrade was one of a series of projects underway at the plant to improve its reliability and production capacity during all weather conditions.
“Landers Shute has proven to be one of South East Queensland’s most efficient water treatment plants,” Mr Pruss said.
“In the 2011 floods, the plant played a vital role in supporting Brisbane’s water supply needs when the Mt Crosby Water Treatment Plants went offline.
“It’s important that we continue to maintain and improve our water infrastructure and provide a reliable drinking water supply to our region’s growing population, no matter what Mother Nature throws at us.”
The upgrade also included a new lime saturator to improve the post lime dosing process and a new acid dosing system to assure both pre and post lime dosing lines are maintained clean and reliable.
“Lime is crucial to the water treatment process,” Mr Pruss said.
“It is added to drinking water at various stages to adjust alkalinity and correct pH levels and this is especially important when we face increased water quality challenges during heavy rainfall events.”
Landers Shute Water Treatment Plant was built in 1989 to supply drinking water from Baroon Pocket Dam to parts of Sunshine Coast.
