2 December 2019
Upgrade Works
Works to expand the water treatment plant at the Goulburn Valley Water site on Ross St Tatura have been taking place over the last 12 months.
Construction of an additional water treatment plant, control building and chemical dosing facility will increase the plant’s delivery capacity from 12ML per day to 18ML per day and meet future demand as the town grows.
The project includes construction of a Dissolved Air Flotation and Filtration [DAFF] plant and a larger chemical dosing and storage facility to accommodate additional chlorine for disinfection.
The $8 million project is being delivered by Laurie Curran Water and is expected to be commissioned in April 2020.
Customers with an interest in viewing this plant and the site once the upgrade is completed are welcome to contact Kristy on education@gvwater.vic.gov.au; (ph) 5832 4869 to register their interest.
The Tatura WTP upgrade will be commissioned by April 2020
Annual maintenance
In parallel with the water treatment plant upgrade, significant maintenance works have also been taking place at the Tatura WTP over several months, with works including desludging of the two earthen storages on the site. The earthen storages contain the dirt and algae removed from the water during the treatment process.
Work to desludge the first of the two storages was completed successfully in April this year. Desludging involves draining the lagoon, drying out the sludge beds and carting the sludge to a neighbouring GVW facility.
Draining of the second earthen storage was recently creating some odour due to a blockage underneath the storage itself, impeding the draining process and made worse by the smell of drying algae remnant from last summer– this was creating a smell similar to rotting vegetation and resulted in some customer complaints. We do apologise for the odour issue, it is something we were not expecting as part of such a routine process and it did take some time to identify the cause.
Now that we understand the reasons for this, the odour situation has been addressed by applying lime and refilling the storage. The blockage issue is expected to rectify itself during the next desludging process, which will take place in 2020.
It is expected that all odour related to this year’s desludging process should have dissipated within a few weeks, with the maintenance project now in its final stages.
Maintenance works are nearing completion at the Tatura WTP
We thank customers for their patience with these works.
Customers are encouraged to provide feedback on this project or GVW services on 1800 45 45 00.