A 10-year project to upgrade Kingaroy’s water supply system took one of its final steps this week when the South Burnett Regional Council accepted a $1.11 million tender for the supply of 7.2km of water pipes from Iplex Pty Ltd.
The new pipes, which are made of glass-reinforced plastic, will be installed between the Gordonbrook water treatment plant and the Stuart River.
Water and Waste Water Portfolio chairman Cr Barry Green told fellow councillors the pipes weren’t the cheapest offered by the three manufacturers who’d responded to the tender but they had several advantages over traditional steel pipes which made council officers think they were a better buy.
SBRC Infrastructure General Manager John Kersnovski said the pipes were a new technology that had only recently became available.
They have a smoother inner surface – which meant water could be pumped through them more efficiently – and were longer than normal pipes, which meant there were fewer joins and therefore less potential problem areas.
Two other advantages were that because the pipes were plastic they wouldn’t corrode; and because they were a larger diameter would require less maintenance in future. But their biggest advantage was that they didn’t need to be wrapped in a polyethylene sleeve, which meant they could be laid faster.
The council had allocated $2.3 million for the project in this year’s Budget to cover the purchase and installation of the pipes, and had originally planned to start work earlier this year, but the project had been delayed by the Australia Day floods.
Council would now purchase the pipes and transfer the balance of the funding into the 2013-14 Budget for the construction phase.
Mr Kersnovski said he believed the total project would come in slightly under budget when completed.
