Media Release

08 Oct 2008

Construction starts on $250 million recycled water scheme at St Marys

Construction is now underway on a major recycled water plant at St Marys that will produce up to 50 million litres of high-quality recycled water each day by 2010.

The $250 million Replacement Flows Project will increase the volume of water in Sydney by 75 per cent from 25 billion litres a year to over 40 billion litres a year.

When complete, the scheme will be one of the largest recycled water schemes in Australia.

The project will see the Penrith, St Marys and Quakers Hill sewage treatment plants connected by pipes to allow treated wastewater from all three plants to be further treated at the new recycled water plant at St Marys. Fifty two kilometres of pipelines of various sizes will be constructed as part of the project.

The highly treated recycled water will be used to replace water currently released from Warragamba Dam for environmental flows.

This will save around 18 billion litres of drinking water a year, which is enough water to supply more than 72,000 households and represents about 3 per cent of Sydney’s water supply.

Construction phase will take about 18 months, with the workforce numbers peaking at about 240.

A pilot plant was commissioned at the site in August.

The pilot plant will be operated for at least four months to test and determine the best type of membranes for the filtration process and guide the final design of the St Marys Recycled Water Plant.

The water will be filtered through extremely fine membranes and reverse osmosis units.

The highly treated recycled water will be low in nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous, helping increase Sydney’s water supply while maintaining river health.

Deerubbin WaterFutures, a consortium of companies including United Group Infrastructure, McConnell Dowell Constructors (Aust) and GE Water & Process Technologies, will work with Sydney Water to deliver this major water recycling project.

Learn more about the Replacement Flows Project.

 

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