Heritage conservation

We classify heritage items into 4 categories of significance:

• Local significance – for example, our wastewater pumping station No. 2, built in 1904
• State significance – for example, our Crown Street Reservoir
• National significance – for example, Captain Cook's landing place, Kurnell, Botany Bay
• World Heritage significance – for example, the Blue Mountains Wilderness Area.

Recording for the future

We capture the history and use of State heritage assets in various ways:

• We collect historic photographs and drawings, and do research to document the history and use of these sites.
• We hire experts to create conservation management plans. These plans tell us exactly how to maintain and protect the historical value of our heritage items.
• We maintain a Section 170 Heritage and Conservation Register. The register lists over 200 heritage assets that we own, occupy and manage under the NSW Heritage Act 1977.

These assets have local and/or State significance. You’ll find them on the NSW State Heritage Inventory database.

We work with Aboriginal communities on all our projects that might affect cultural heritage. We do this to make sure we understand and respect First Nations views.

We take great care to avoid or reduce any harm to cultural heritage sites. For example:

• We might change the route of pipelines to go around Aboriginal sites or tunnel underneath them.
• Whenever possible, we only do our work in areas that have already been disturbed in the past.
• If we can, we change our plans to protect important sites, such as officially recognised Aboriginal Places.

Honouring cultural values

We're committed to learning about and honouring intangible cultural values, such as Aboriginal creation stories. For instance, we celebrate the Five Islands Dreaming Story and the story of Gurangatch and Mirragan in the Burragorang Valley, which is the source for 70% of our water.

Sydney Water and the Water Board before us have a long history of protecting Aboriginal sites and objects, including:

• tools and objects (artefacts)
• art on rocks (painted, drawn, or carved)
• trees that have been culturally modified by Aboriginal people (scarred trees)
• places where tools were sharpened (grinding grooves)
• ancient shell mounds (middens)
• evidence of long-ago camps or settlements (occupation deposits).

We follow the law and our own guidelines by checking for important natural areas before we start any project. We look closely at how our work might affect these natural heritage sites, and we promise to avoid or reduce any negative impact as much as we can.

Our natural heritage sites

The NSW State Heritage Inventory lists around 200 natural heritage sites within the area where we operate. These are places that feature physical and biological formations with outstanding aesthetic or scientific value. These sites might include:

• exceptional geological formations (unique rocks and landforms)
• fossil sites (palaeontological sites)
• habitats for threatened animal and plant species
• natural areas that are extremely valuable for science, conservation or natural beauty.

We manage 3 natural heritage sites with scientific value:

• Bombo Quarry – geological formation (also known as 'Bombo Headland Quarry Geological Site')
• Botany Wetlands – Eastern Suburbs Banksia Scrub (also known as 'Botany Water Reserves')
• Potts Hill Reservoirs & Site – remnant Cumberland Plain Woodland.

The shared Sydney Water and WaterNSW Historical Research and Archives Facility archive goes back to 1888, when the Board of Water Supply & Sewerage began. It contains photographs from the 1890s to 1993.

We've also scanned over 70,000 negatives. Many of these are in the City of Sydney Archives & History Resources, where you'll also find a large collection of historical documents and small historical objects.

To find out more, email archiverequests@​sydneywater.​com.au.

Since the time of the Tank Stream, Sydney's first water supply, we've faced droughts and floods, population growth and industry. We look to waterways for recreation, and must protect them for both environmental and public health. Our water needs and values have changed.

Original custodians

When Europeans arrived in 1788, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation were living in the area we now call the City of Sydney.

For thousands of years, First Nations peoples had a deep, careful and sustainable relationship with freshwater and saltwater. Waterways provided transport routes, drinking water, food and resources.

The Tank Stream was the Sydney settlement's original source of water. As the settlement expanded, people cut down trees, allowed animals into the water and dumped waste into the stream. To protect the water supply, rules were put in place:

• In April 1788, Governor Philip banned cutting down any trees within 50 feet of the stream. Later, buildings, animals and bathing near the stream were also banned.
• Governor Hunter punished people who polluted the water with public floggings, fines and even taking away their houses.
• Under the Sydney Slaughter-houses Act 1849, many polluting industries were forced out of the city.

Despite these efforts, the Tank Stream had become an open sewer by the 1850s. It had to be covered.

In 1857, the first planned wastewater system was built. It carried sewage away from the city toward Bennelong Point.

At the beginning of the 1900s, all wastewater (including sewage from houses and buildings, and industrial waste) and stormwater went straight into Sydney Harbour. To reduce pollution, a series of major projects were built to redirect wastewater:

• 1916 – the South Western Suburbs Ocean Outfall Sewer was completed at Malabar.
• 1929 – the Wollongong Sewerage Scheme was started.
• 1930 – the Northern Suburbs Ocean Outfall Sewer was built.
• 1936 – the Bondi Wastewater Treatment Plant was constructed.
• 1938 – the first systems to treat wastewater inland were built in areas like Fairfield, Campbelltown and Camden.
• 1958 – the Port Kembla Wastewater Scheme began operations.
• 1959 – the Cronulla Wastewater System started.

As the population grew and produced more wastewater, we had to make 2 major changes:

• expand our coastal wastewater treatment plants to handle a larger volume of water
• build more inland treatment plants.

From 1984 to 1990, we built deep water ocean outfalls at Bondi, North Head and Malabar. The result has been a huge improvement in water quality on Sydney's beaches.

Historically, Greater Sydney got its drinking water from natural sources like rainwater collected in creeks and freshwater wetlands. Later, we built dams to store water.

The Upper Nepean Scheme was a major engineering project that channelled water from the Avon, Cordeaux and Nepean dams to a reservoir at Prospect to be distributed via gravity-fed pipes throughout Greater Sydney. West Ryde Pumping Station was completed in 1921 so water could be pumped to the Northern Suburbs.

Current management

As the population grows, so does the demand for water.

• WaterNSW manages 21 dams and reservoirs that store water for Greater Sydney.
• Sydney Water manages the pipes and infrastructure that get water to and from homes and businesses.

Between 1960 and 2010, 3 major droughts led to significant upgrades in the water supply:

• Warragamba Dam opened in 1960.
• The Shoalhaven Scheme was completed in 1977 to top up our water supply systems. It pumped water from Tallowa Dam, Fitzroy Falls Reservoir and Wingecarribee Reservoir. When water levels in Warragamba Dam dropped to 32% in 2006, we investigated sources of water other than rain. The Sydney Desalination Plant was built in 2010.