A major upgrade to the Ballarat South Wastewater Treatment Plant Inlet Works has been completed, significantly increasing treatment capacity at the facility.
The upgrade, which will cater for significant growth in Ballarat and surrounding areas, was completed ahead of its 2023 planned timeline and under budget.
The inlet works project was estimated to cost $9.2 million and came in under budget, at $7.5 million. This allowed for other complementary site improvement works to be funded, to further improve the efficiency and safety of the operations.
CHW’s Managing Director, Jeff Haydon, said the company was proud of the project’s delivery.
“The population of the Central Highlands region is growing rapidly and shows no sign of slowing. These wastewater system improvements are a key part of catering for that growth,” Mr Haydon said.
“These inlet works were one of our top 10 priority projects for the 2018 to 2023 period.
“Our Ballarat South site, originally built in 1923, now has a large solar array, which powers a large part of the overall daily energy needs at the site. This, along with our four other solar arrays, supports our commitment to net zero emissions by 2035.”
The inlet works project saw the installation of new Archimedes screw pumps and new coarse and fine screens. This equipment helps filter out unwanted material from the wastewater, as it first arrives at the treatment plant before it makes its way through several additional treatment process steps.
This project improves the hydraulic capacity and process performance by increasing the screening capacity from 700 litres per second to 2,000 litres per second. It also increases the grit and inorganic solids capture rate from 30 per cent to 70 per cent.
A new pumping station and pipeline was also constructed to transfer recycled water to the inlet works. This is used as service water to clean screens within the wastewater treatment plant. This is a water recycling efficiency enhancement to the operations by reducing the demand on potable water use at the plant. The existing recycled water pumps have been replaced and a new pipeline was constructed to transfer recycled water to the solids dewatering process.
Image: supplied via CHW website.
