May 18, 2016
The commissioning of the new $7.5 million Gordonbrook Water Treatment Plant has gone smoothly and produced a couple of unexpected extra benefits.
Water portfolio chair Cr Roz Frohloff told Wednesday’s Council meeting the new plant became fully operational on Tuesday night.
The “cut in” had gone smoothly and there had been minimal impacts on Kingaroy’s water supply.
This was largely thanks to the co-operation of Kingaroy residents, who had been asked to limit water usage to essentials from Monday to Wednesday.
“The project team worked around the clock for two days,” Cr Frohloff said.
Infrastructure General Manager Russell Hood told the meeting that from his perspective, the new plant was performing better than expected.
He said early indications were that it would use less chlorine than the old one.
This would lead to some useful cost savings over the longer term.
Mr Hood said the water quality being produced by the new plant was also at a higher level than expected.
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Kingaroy’s new $20 million Waste Water Treatment Plant is also moving towards being fully commissioned, Cr Frohloff said.
Seed sludge to start the biological processes at the plant was added in the first two weeks of May, and raw sewage cut-over was achieved on Monday, May 15.
Council operators are now being trained by the plant’s builders Aquatec Maxcon, and finalisation of plant instrumentation, mechanical and civil works is close to completion.
Cr Frohloff said the new plant is not yet operating at full capacity, but some good results should be seen over the coming month.
Meanwhile, the old sewage plant has been disconnected and demolition will proceed in the near future.
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Refurbishment of Murgon’s Water Treatment Plant is taking slightly longer than planned because parts of it are more run down than expected.
Cr Frohloff told Wednesday’s meeting that contractors have stripped back the plant’s third filter train and are currently making repairs to the vessel’s internals.
Once this is completed the overall refurbishment of the plant should continue to progress at a reasonable pace.
New backwash tanks are also now on site and will be installed in coming weeks.
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