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Central Highlands Water (CHW) provides water and wastewater services to residential and commercial customers in the central region of Victoria, covering a total population of 120,000. The utilisation of Trenchless Technology for inspection and rehabilitation is an important component of maintaining the region’s water and wastewater networks.
The authority supplies water to a region popular with tourists for its weekend spa getaways, scenic drives and wineries, providing services to the historic gold mining towns of Ballarat, Maryborough and Clunes, the spa resort town of Daylesford and smaller centres in areas extending south to Rokewood, east to Ballan and Blackwood, west to Beaufort and north to Navarre, Redbank and Havelock.
CHW: rewards and challenges
With four centres under permanent stage 4 water restrictions and another three towns under stage 3 restrictions, a number of towns, including parts of Ballarat, have converted to utilising groundwater sources, while the Goldfields Superpipe has been built from Bendigo to Ballarat.
“With lower than average rainfall for a number of years now, water resources have been the biggest challenge,” said Mr Parr.
Mr Parr has worked for CHW for 21 years. When asked about the most enjoyable aspect of the job Mr Parr said “Knowing that we are providing an essential service and making sure our assets are continually maintained. We provide a reliable service.
“I think there are challenging parts to all aspects of the job. Sometimes managing people can be a challenge but it can also be rewarding.”
Mr Parr identified the most challenging part overall as “making sure we have a good eye on the big picture and making sure things don’t get missed.”
On the job with trenchless
The authority manages approximately 2,194 kilometres of water mains and 1,178 kilometres of sewer mains and uses the Hansen Asset Management System, which puts in place several plans that targets the following areas, including:
- Sewer collection upgrade;
- Sewer collection replacement;
- Water distribution upgrade;
- Water distribution replacement; and
- Non-revenue water.
CHW also works with contractors to complete trenchless projects. Infratec works on water main renewals and Underground Asset Services is contracted to complete sewer main renewals.
Water main renewals are continuous, with an estimated one main repaired each week. CWH does not normally inspect water mains; however six kilometres of mains were acoustically tested last year as part of a trial program. Approximately five to ten kilometres of sewer mains are tested per year. CWH renews approximately five to ten kilometres of water mains and approximately one kilometre of sewer mains each year.
Mr Parr says that Trenchless Technology play a big part in CHW’s inspection and maintenance programs, such as pipe cracking for water mains, pipe lining systems used for repairing sewer mains, and CCTV.
“CCTV inspection of the sewer mains is vital to maintaining our sewer system. We have an external contractor that provides a report on mains selected for inspection, and we also have our own CCTV that we use to inspect mains each time we get a blockage. The CCTV inspection helps us to determine the cause of blockages, and therefore allows us to rectify problems and reduces repeat blockages.”
Future programs
CHW has a comprehensive inspection and repair schedule in place for its mains and sewers.
“For water mains, there is a list of every main and the date they are expected to be renewed. However, there is also a detailed list of mains to be renewed and it has approximately twelve months worth of renewals on the list.”
A project is also currently underway to upgrade and maintain the region’s sewer system.
“The Ballarat outfall sewer main does not have the capacity to contain one-in-five year rainfall events.
“For sewer mains, we have a matrix that has the mains split into categories to be inspected within either 1, 5, 20 or 50 years,” Mr Parr said.
