Water is the key to future Sydney growth and sustainability

Kevin Young, Managing Director of Sydney Water, provides his insights on the utility’s sustainability achievements and its plans for the future.

Sydney Water has supported the healthy growth of greater Sydney and its communities for 126 years with water and wastewater services.

We supply 1.4 billion litres of drinking water to our 4.6 million customers across Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains every day. We also remove and treat a similar amount of wastewater every day.

The reality is that water is important to Sydney’s history and, of course, our future. In fact, Sydney would not be located where it is today if in 1788 Governor Phillip had not realised the importance of the location of the Tank Stream for the survival of the first colony.

As we look to the future, the debate about our city’s growth has tended to focus on housing and transport, but water and wastewater management is quintessential in any discussions on growth, sustainability and liveability. We should, as a community, be talking more about how we are going to plan for drinking water distribution and wastewater removal as the city grows and renews - perhaps the fact our water infrastructure is underground is one of the reasons its importance is sometimes forgotten.

And this is no trivial matter. Over the next 20 years there will be an extra 1.3 million people living in Sydney in 500,000 new homes with an extra 635,000 new jobs. To cater for this growth, good planning for Sydney’s water supply will be essential.

Sydney Water has, often incorrectly, been viewed as a collective of plumbers to simply provide water services, but we have proved to be much more than that - we have been Master Planners to provide the cornerstone which has allowed Sydney to grow in a sustainable way to be where it is today.

Sydney Water’s sustainability milestones

Beaches

One of my greatest pleasures is to swim in the pristine waters of our local beaches and it is very rewarding for me as the managing director to know Sydney Water has been a significant contributor to the improvements in water quality.

As recently as 25 years ago, Sydney’s iconic beaches were often closed due to pollution.

We have invested over $3 billion in today’s dollar terms over the past 25 years in our deep ocean outfalls and wastewater treatment network to improve water quality along the Sydney coast. The results speak for themselves - all but one of our coastal beaches are rated ‘good’ or ‘very good’ in the State of the Beaches report.

Water demand

The introduction of our water efficiency programs for business and residential customers in 1999, in conjunction with improvements in technology, has provided significant reductions in water demand.

Current total water consumption levels for Sydney are at the same levels experienced in the 1970s despite an over 50% increase in population since then.

Our initial programs were driven by drought. Now we are planning to ensure secure water supply for a growing population, planning for new supply options while at the same time guaranteeing river health.

Climate change

Sydney Water’s Climate Change Adaptation Program was developed to investigate how we can sustainably reduce the impacts of future climate change on our infrastructure, business processes and our customers.

In 2011, we worked with a range of partners including Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) to develop AdaptWater, which is a risk and cost-benefit analysis tool that can project and quantify the probability of damage and failure of assets by existing and future hazards, and assess and compare adaptation options.

Innovative programs such as AdaptWater play a key role in our community, helping increase the resilience of our infrastructure and allowing us to maintain the level of service our customers expect. In turn, this could potentially save millions of dollars in avoided costs, by investing in mitigation options instead of expensive repairs.

Energy production

Sydney Water has developed an extensive portfolio of industry-leading, innovative renewable energy projects at our wastewater treatment plants, using hydro generation or co-generation, which uses biogas produced from wastewater digesters to generate energy.

These initiatives provide around 17% of Sydney Water’s total energy needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 60,000 tonnes a year. These programs also minimise our exposure to energy price rises, the pressures of population growth and the resulting increased demands on water and wastewater treatment.

Environment projects

We are proud to have made a contribution to making Sydney more liveable. Through our various collaborations we have improved the local urban amenity and enhanced natural environments - outcomes our customers value.

Cooks River

A major environmental project just completed by Sydney Water is the revitalisation and naturalisation of the Cooks River.

1.1 km of the deteriorated concrete panels constructed in the 1940s have been naturalised and over 80,000 local native plants have been planted, along with the construction of a natural stormwater overflow treatment area at Cup and Saucer wetlands.

This project has provided wetland habitat for local wildlife and improved the urban amenity for local residents to enjoy.

Priority sewerage program

Our $157m Priority Sewerage Program has allowed thousands of customers on Sydney’s fringe to connect to town sewer for the first time. The new scheme will help the community by reducing risks to public health, improving public amenity and protecting the environment as residents will no longer have to rely on septic tanks and pump-out services, which could save them hundreds of dollars, help reduce odours and eliminate dampness and seepage on their properties.

Liveable city programs

Sydney Water realises that we need to do more for our customers than provide water and wastewater services to make our city more liveable.

To this end we manage and protect over 200 built and natural heritage sites including the Tank Stream. Last year we discovered a remarkable Indigenous artwork site in the heart of suburban Sydney which, in conjunction with the Local Land Council, we will protect for future generations.

We maintain a cycleway on our land around the Prospect Reservoir, which we have recently reopened following Water NSW’s upgrade of the Reservoir Wall.

A further program has been an anti-graffiti program we have undertaken in partnership with Marrickville Council where renowned street artist Sid Tapia created a modern art piece on a 75 m² section of one of our buildings adjacent to the stormwater channel in Sydenham. The success of this project provided the catalyst for a similar project where artist Thomas Jackson painted an 80 m² mural on a concrete tank at Sydney Water’s Wollongong Water Recycling Plant.

The future

Sydney Water is looking to the future to ensure we continue to ‘lift the bar’ to achieve improved levels of customer service and to keep downward pressure on costs. We also want to ensure that Sydney is an enjoyable city to live in.

Issues such as population growth, urban densification, long-term water security and climate change will greatly influence the liveability and the future prosperity of our city.

Demand forecasts

Sydney Water has just completed a new 50-year demand forecast that encompasses a range of future water-use scenarios for our projected growing population. We are taking a long-term strategic approach to managing demand. Our overall focus for water efficiency now is to deliver services that our customers value, in a way that keeps bills low.

Research programs

• Sydney Water, in association with other water utilities in Australia and internationally and Australian universities, won the Global Grand Award at the International Water Association’s (IWA) 2014 Project Innovation Awards held in Lisbon for the Sewer Corrosion and Odour Research program (SCORe). The project helps to maximise the service life of sewer networks and savings in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars are expected to be achieved through its application across the globe.
• A similar collaborative research project is currently being conducted on condition assessment and leak detection on critical water mains. The aim is to remove the guesswork from critical pipe inspection. The research is not just about heading off major incidents but more importantly, ensuring that water mains are not being replaced before they need to be, which leads to substantial cost savings and less wastage of a valuable resource. It has been estimated that the Australian water industry could save $160 million over 20 years using the results of the project, which is due to be completed in 2016.
• Sydney Water and Randwick City Council are partnering on an innovative trial that could see kitchen food scraps processed at a sewage treatment plant to produce electricity and to reduce waste going to landfill.
• Sydney Water is also researching additional opportunities to generate green energy through co-digestion at our wastewater treatment plants to increase the amount of biogas produced from anaerobic digestion and increase energy yields.
• We are conducting a trial where glycerol, a by-product of biodiesel manufacture, is added to the wastewater treatment process to improve energy generation. At the same time, this reduces the waste stream and reduces impacts on the environment.
• In a partnership with private company Oxyzone Pty Ltd, Sydney Water developed an Ozone Trailer, using ozone as an alternative to chlorine disinfection of new water pipes. This innovation is now providing an annual saving of approximately $1.4 million to Sydney Water, with disinfection now taking a third of the time without the need to use a chemical such as chlorine. The process also uses less water and the ozonation offers significantly improved health and safety aspects for employees.

As the managing director, I am proud of what Sydney Water has already achieved and we are certainly looking at making an impression in the future, helping to shape the lifestyle of Greater Sydney.

To create a truly liveable city in the future will require everyone working together - transport, utilities, builders - to plan and implement integrated systems which put sustainability at the forefront.

The success of this liveability will be measured by how well all the planning stakeholders collaborate with each other, how well we engage with the community and importantly, from Sydney Water’s perspective, how well we partner with our customers