National Water Week

I was on holidays during National Water Week, but to make sure I didn’t miss out on the fun and excitement, I looked up NWW activities at my holiday location – Alice Springs. And so I spent the morning of my last whole day in Alice at the open day at Alice Springs Water Reclamation Plant.

The plant was designed to protect the nearby Ilparpa Swamp from the overflow from the wastewater stabilisation ponds. The plant treats 600 megalitres of water per day, most of which is pumped 6.2 km to the Arid Zone Research Centre. Some of the water is used to irrigate Blatherskite Park, which was previously irrigated with water directly from the stabilisation ponds.

In this part of the plant, water is treated with sulphuric acid to adjust pH, cationic polymer and aluminate to coagulate and flocculate.

The water from the end ponds is pumped to the plant, where the pH is adjusted with sulphuric acid prior to coagulation with a cationic polymer and flocculation with aluminate. Although some solids are removed in the ponds, the intake water for the plant contains large amounts of algae which are removed in the coagulation/flocculation process.

The second stage of the treatment is Dissolved Air Flotation. The removed solids are returned to the ponds, and the clarified water is then chlorinated and sent to the reclaimed water tank. A critical control point sends the water back to the pond if any of the on-line monitoring indicates that the water is not meeting the required standard.

Water that does not meet standards is sent back to the wastewater ponds

At the Arid Zone Research Centre the water goes through a final treatment and storage process known as Soil Aquifer Treatment (SAT). Although this process has been in use in overseas for many years, the Alice Springs plant is the first in Australia. The water is stored in basins located over the original Todd River artesian basin where potable water will be stored underground for future reuse.

Built at a cost of A$10.4M, and opened in May 2008 the project has won awards for its architectural design. Let’s hope it is similarly successful in its application.

The grounds of the plant have been landscaped by Greening Australia using local native vegetation and water from the plant.

I’ve added more photos to the Smartwater Flickr group.