Midcoast Water
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Who we are and what we do COMMUNITY INFORMATION BOOKLET 2016 Contents Introduction 3 MidCoast Water 4-5 Sustainable water cycle management 6 The water cycle 7 Our water supplies 8 The Manning Scheme 9-14 How does water get to our homes? 15 The treatment process 16-18 Other water supplies 19 Karuah River and Great Lakes Catchment 20 Water supply schemes 21-24 How much water do we use? 25 Let’s get waterwise 26 Don’t spray in the middle of the day! 27 Wastewater 28-31 Recycling 32 Wipes stop pipes 33 Think at the sink 34 Sewer spills 35 Water Quality Testing 36-37 Paying for it all 38-40 Does everyone have clean water? 41 For further information 42 2 Who we are and what we do Meet Whizzy: Introduction This is Whizzy the Waterdrop, MidCoast Water’s mascot. Whizzy Every day MidCoast Water cleans and pumps almost helps to remind us how 10 Olympic swimming pools worth of water through important it is to save a network of over a thousand kilometres of pipes to water and is a favourite of make sure that the people of the Manning, Great Lakes the children in our area. and Gloucester have ready access to safe water for all For more information on Whizzy email their needs. That water is used by almost 80 000 people community@ in 27 towns from Crowdy Head in the north, to Hawks midcoastwater.com.au Nest in the south, and Barrington in the west, before we take and treat the waste. All this without damaging the environments we take the water from and return it to after treatment. How do we do it? Read on and find out! 3 Who we are and what we do MidCoast Water MidCoast Water is a local government authority, providing water and sewerage services to the Great Lakes, Greater Taree and Gloucester council areas. We are responsible for five local water supply systems, delivering more than eight billion litres of treated water, each year to our customers. MidCoast Water’s area of operations on the mid north coast of NSW extends from Crowdy Head in the north to Tea Gardens in the south and west to Gloucester – a total area of 10,000 km2. We provide services to some 40,000 customers and play a role in the management and conservation of local water catchment areas. Our waste water management networks are also extensive, including 13 sewage treatment schemes and ten water recycling schemes. Our main water supply network is the Manning Water Supply Scheme, which serves customers from Harrington in the north to Pacific Palms in the south and west as far as Krambach. Smaller water supply schemes operate at Tea Gardens, Bulahdelah, Stroud and Gloucester. MidCoast Water also operates extensive waste water treatment networks, providing advanced treatment of waste water before returning to the environment, or recycling through beneficial reuse schemes. Our recycling schemes currently provide treated water for irrigation of farm lands at Taree, Wingham, Lansdowne, Coopernook and Stroud and public recreation areas at Hawks Nest, Tuncurry, Bulahdelah, Harrington and Gloucester. As a local government authority, MidCoast Water is governed by a board of six elected representatives, drawn from our constituent councils: Great Lakes, Greater Taree and Gloucester. The board serves a four-year term, under the guidance of a chairperson, elected annually. 4 Who we are and what we do MidCoast Water The chairperson and councillors Each year the six councillors elect a chairperson. The councillors meet regularly to consider reports and recommendations from the staff. These reports cover lots of issues. They might be about building a new water treatment plant, or setting fees and charges for water and sewage. The councillors look at each report and then take a vote on the matter. The chairperson runs the meeting and makes sure all the councillors follow the rules of debate. If the majority of councillors agree with the decision, it becomes a resolution of council and can then be acted upon by the staff. The general manager The person in charge of the staff at MidCoast Water is the general manager. The general manager reports to the councillors and sees to the day to day running of the county council. The staff There are more than 200 employees on MidCoast Water’s staff. Some are based in offices at Taree and Forster, others are based in depots and some work at water and sewage treatment plants. There are many different skills involved in running an organisation the size of MidCoast Water. There are engineers to design and optimise new water and sewerage schemes, operators to run the treatment plants and water and sewer systems, maintenance crews, technical staff, inspectors to check new Some of the original decision makers - plumbing and trade waste and a range of administrative functions. Wingham Municipal Council in the 1920s 5 Who we are and what we do Sustainable water cycle management Water is a precious resource. Every living thing on our planet needs water to survive. Without it there would be no trees, birds, animals, fish or people. Water is very precious. All the water that MidCoast Water delivers to people’s taps originates from a freshwater environment. There is only so much water in a river or groundwater aquifer at any one time. This water is required for the healthy functioning of ecosystems whose plants and animals not only help to sustain human life but have their own indisputable right to existence. It is also shared with other people, such as the upstream farmers who use it for their house water, stock water, and irrigation. Once town water has been used, the sewage has the potential to pollute the environment, as Water facts well as posing a significant health hazard. Sustainable Water Cycle Management refers to the way MidCoast Water The average human adult has 45 litres of water in their body. The delivers these town water and sewer services in a way that does not harm food we eat is also made up of water. Fruits and vegetables have a high water content - a watermelon is about 95 per cent water, the environment, and is economically and socially responsible and sound. It meat contains 70 per cent and bread about 30 per cent. means that our communities will be able to thrive now and into the future. Every day our body loses water. When it is hot, or we exercise we lose water in the form of sweat. We also lose water when we go to For more information on MidCoast Water’s Sustainable Water Cycle the toilet. To stay alive we need to replace 2.5 litres of water every day. Management Plan see our website, or contact us for a copy of ‘Our Water, Our Future’. Of all the water in the world 97 per cent is salty ocean water, 2 per cent is polar ice and only a very small 0.1 per cent is fresh water suitable for human needs. 6 Who we are and what we do The water cycle All the water in the world is billions of years old - it continually cycles around and around in a process called ‘the water cycle’. So the water you used to brush your teeth this morning is more than four billion years old! 7 Who we are and what we do Our water supplies MidCoast Water is reponsible for supplying a reliable and healthy supply of water to the Great Lakes region (from Tea Gardens to Tuncurry), the Manning region (from Coopernook to Hallidays Point) and the Gloucester region (Gloucester and Barrington). To do this MidCoast Water has five water supply schemes - the Manning (which supplies water from Coopernook to Pacific Palms), Bulahdelah, Gloucester, Stroud and Tea Gardens. The MidCoast Water service area has more than 40 reservoirs to provide water to 40,000 connections. 8 Who we are and what we do The Manning Scheme The largest system MidCoast Water looks after is the Manning Water Supply Scheme, which supplies water to Wingham approximately 36,000 homes, businesses and factories in areas such as Taree, Wingham, Forster, Tuncurry, Pacific Palms, Nabiac, Dyers Crossing, Harrington, Coopernook, Lansdowne and Old Bar. MidCoast Water operates five town water supply schemes. Almost 90 % of our customers get their tap water from the Manning scheme. There are The Manning River approximately 36 000 connections. These include houses and apartments; businesses such as shops, factories, and farms; and other places such as schools, hospitals, churches, and sports fields. Taree Towns in the Manning Scheme include Taree, Forster, Tuncurry, Wingham, Old Bar, Pacific Palms, Nabiac, Harrington, Coopernook and Lansdowne (see the figure on page 10. Water is pumped from a pool in the Manning River one kilometre upstream of the tidal limit at Bootawa, which is south of Wingham. From there it is Bootawa Dam taken to Bootawa Dam; a large off-river storage. Next to the dam is the Bootawa Water Treatment Plant which cleans the water before it is pumped to 31 reservoirs across the supply area for distribution to all the customers. There are 10 pumping stations to carry the water through the system, 420 Tinonee km of main pipelines and 280 km of smaller pipelines to distribute the water. It takes water three or four days to travel from the dam to the most remote parts of the system! The following pages have more information on each of the stages of the Manning Scheme. 9 Who we are and what we do Lansdowne Coopernook Crowdy Head Wingham Harrington Manning River Intake Taree Cundletown Manning Point Bootawa Dam and Water Treatment Plant Purfleet The Manning Scheme Tinonee Old Bar The journey from The Manning River Wallabi Point Krambach Hallidays Point Nabiac Nabiac Borefields (future water supply) Tuncurry Forster Green Point Legend Water Intake Pacific Palms Water Storage Township 10 Who we are and what we do Smiths Lake The Manning River and its catchment Fresh water is pumped out of the Manning River for the town water supply.