Eastern Treatment Plant Upgrade
The Eastern Treatment upgrade involved building seven new structures over approximately six hectares of land within the existing Eastern Treatment Plant boundary.
The new components include a tertiary supply pump station, ozone injection and ozone production buildings, biological media filters, UV system and chlorine contact basins.
The Eastern Treatment Plant previously supplied about 22 billion litres of ‘Class C’ recycled water per year. Melbourne Water required an upgrade that improved the quality of recycled water to ‘Class A’, which could then be used for wider applications such as watering sports grounds, toilet flushing and irrigating vegetables.
Fitzgerald was awarded the largest and most critical aspect of the project being the biological media filters.
The project objectives were to:
- Upgrade the ETP to include advanced tertiary treatment that significantly improves the quality of water discharged, thus addressing the impacts in the marine environment.
- Enable the production of a high quality recycled water product that is fit for purpose.
- Achieve completion and commissioning by 30 November 2012 if possible but no later than 15 February 2013.
Included within the works was the complete construction of the biological media filters including detailed excavation, formwork and concrete construction of 32 individual filter bays.
These works totalled to approximately 37,000 m2 of formwork, 11,000 m3 of structural concrete and 3000 tonnes of reinforcement steel. An average workforce of 90 personnel supported by 2 number fully manned and internal 200 tonne crawler cranes to ensure the client’s program needs were met.
The program was aggressively set at 15 months, which was considered at the time as an unachievable target, but nonetheless a target to aim for. Fitzgerald delivered the works 3 months ahead of program, within quality, safety and budget targets.
Such a success the project was, it has received a number of awards such as:
- International Water Association Award.
- Australia Water Association, Project Innovation Award 2013.
- Global water Summit international Project of the Year Award 2013.
- Highly Commended Award (Engineering Projects category) – Concrete Institute of Australia.
- Engineers Australia Excellence award in the infrastructure (projects over $20 million) category.
