Alice Water Smart - Recycling Water in the Desert

is a suit of projects aimed at reducing consumption of potable water in Alice Springs to preserve the life of the town's water supply, the Roe Creek Bore Field. This initiative is coordinated by the Power and Water Corporation, NT and supported by the Australian Government's Water for the Future program. The Alice Water Smart program aims to reduce water consumption by 1600 mega litres per annum (equivalent to 2 months water supply for Alice). One of the key projects is the Alice Water Smart Reuse initiative aimed at supplementing potable water supply with recycled water for irrigation purposes. This involves upgrading the existing recycled water plant at the Alice Springs Waste Stabilisation Ponds (WSP) to enable supply of recycled water for unrestricted irrigation purposes. The improved product water quality will be equivalent to the Class A recycled water standard from the Queensland Recycled Water Management Plan and Validation Guidelines, 2008. The Alice Springs Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP) is a lagoon based treatment system with aeration on the primary lagoon and polishing lagoon. Currently effluent of the WWTP is treated to equivalent of class B standard by a 6MLD Dissolved Air Floatation (DAF) plant, and chlorine disinfected with the reclaimed water supplied to selected end-users in Alice Springs. The commissioned upgrades under Alice Water Smart will expand the capacity and treatment processes at the Alice WWTP to improve the quality and quantity of recycled water. A new 2.5 ML storage tank and additional filtration and disinfection facilities have been constructed as part of the upgrade to meet the projected demand for recycled water and achieve the required water quality standard. Supply pipelines have also been extended to provide recycled water to more non- residential users. The project is currently at the commissioning and validation stage with supply of class A water to the customers in Alice Springs on schedule to commence in April 2014. Iouriv Water Solutions Pty Ltdare proud to be selected by Power & Water Corporation, NT to provide ongoing technical support and project delivery advice on the Alice Smart WWTP upgrades project. -------------------------------

About Author:Iouri Vaisman, MD Iouriv Water Solutions (IVS).Iouri is a civil - construction engineer with over 20 years extensive professional experience in the water idustry both in Australia and internationally. His experience encompasses planning, design, project management and operation of water reuse and recycling schemes including stormwater harvesting, sewer mining, grey water and effluent reuse, stormwater management strategies and hydraulics studies, drainage and Water Sensitive Urban Design.

Iouri designed and project managed eight currently operational water reuse schemes in Australia including stormwater harvesting, sewer mining, grey water and effluent reuse schemes.Iouri's other blogs can be readhere