Overview
Two sewage treatment plants – at Proserpine and Cannonvale in North Queensland – are being upgraded to serve growing communities and meet the most stringent effluent discharge requirements to protect the Great Barrier Reef. They will also provide benefits to the local community by reducing sewage overflows, and improving noise and odour.
Carbon saved over infrastructure lifecycle (tCO2e) 20,510
Water saved over infrastructure lifecycle (ML) 2,966
Materials lifecycle impact reduction (Ecopoints) 5,578
Materials lifecycle impact reduction (tCO2e) 3,149
Details
- Rating Type Water
- Rating Score 56.4
- Registered Date March 2014
- Practical Completion May 2014
- Jurisdiction Australia
- States QLD
- Suburb Whitsundays
- Assessor Matthew Brennan
- Capital Value $45 Million
- Other Stakeholders Downer, Whitsunday Regional Council
Rating Highlights
- Management Systems Good management systems integrating the IS rating tool into practices. Knowledge sharing clearly demonstrated with a number of internal and external events/initiatives undertaken to share sustainability lessons learnt.
- Procurement and Purchasing Pro-1 Level 3. Strong commitment to and application of sustainable procurement including local procurement:
- 61% of total spend in the Whitsunday region
- 30% of total spend in greater Queensland
- Climate Change Adaptation Cli-1 Level 2, Cli-2 Level 3. The project undertook a thorough, formal climate change risk assessment and implemented controls to reduce 22 ‘high’ or ‘very high’ risks to a ‘moderate’ or ‘low’ rating.
- Energy and Carbon Ene-1, Ene-2 Level 2. 20,700 tCO2e reduced through the implementation of carbon and energy reduction strategies over the life of the asset. This equates to a 15.5% reduction in energy use.
- Water Wat-1, Wat-2 Level 2. 43% total lifecycle water saving for the Tenix Design over the Base Case Design. This represents a volume saving of approximately 3 GL. This saving is almost entirely due to more efficient use of recycled effluent.
- Materials Mat-1 Level 2. 3,149 tCO2e saved through optimised design and use of recycled aggregates. Reduction in 4200 tonnes of concrete
- Discharges to Air, Land & Water During construction the project did not receive any noise, vibration or dust complaints. Vibration causing activity was only conducted during normal weekday hours to minimise impacts on residential receivers
- Ecology Eco-2 Level 2, Eco-3 Level 3. Ecological value enhanced through >5,000m2 of regenerated native habitat and 1,000m2 of wetland. Biodiversity Values have been improved by more than 200% at both sites, and, even allowing for significant attrition within the revegetation plots, an overall enhancement to the site for more than 20% is achievable within a 30 year period.
- Community Health, Well-being and Safety Hea-1, Hea-2 Level 2. The following two key priority community health and wellbeing indicators have been established, implemented and monitored for the project
- quality of water discharged from wastewater treatment plants is of critical importance
- support economic development and employment
The results of the monitoring demonstrated that there had been an improvement over time i.e. local participation increased from 59% at the time of submitting for the Design Rating to 61% at the completion of construction and the water quality of receiving waters has improved significantly with the completion of both plants.
- Innovation Inn-1 Level 3. Tenix has developed Parallel Nitrification and De Nitrification (PND) technology for the Proserpine Plant.Patents have been granted for the PND technology in Australia, USA, Singapore and NZ. Compared to BAU technologies, this world first process:
- Significantly improves nitrogen removal
- Is more compact
- Uses less construction materials
- Is more energy efficient