Business Central September 2021

14 | Hastings District Council: Frimley Park & Wairoha Water Plant Upgrades $85mwater infrastructure upgrade T T Richard Loader DEVELOPMENT T T to page 16 Visit: Call: 0800 473 762 S afe drinking water and supply resilience are the primary drivers of two major new water treatment plants in Hastings due for completion late 2022/early 2023. The water treatment projects at Frimley Park and Council-owned land on the corner of Southampton St East and Hastings St South, known as the Waiaroha plant, form a signif- icant share of the Hastings District Council’s $85 million drinking water capital upgrade. The programme also includes treatment plant upgrades for eight small community water supplies, and a large five-kilometre pipeline from Hastings to Havelock North supplying a new booster pump station. Hastings water is supplied from the giant Heretaunga Plains Aquifer accessed from bores, most under artesian pressure. Until 2016, the water was taken from the ground, put into the network and consumed without any treatment. The brutal catalyst for the major upgrade was Havelock North’s 2016 water contamina- tion event that resulted in wide spread sick- ness through campylobacter, and contributed to the deaths of four people. As a result the Hastings District Council adopted a new drinking water strategy em- bracing a complete change in how drinking water is accessed, processed and delivered to its urban population. The new plants form part of the Hastings District Council’s multi-barrier approach to drinking water safety, which included treatment of the source water through UV treatment, chlorination disinfection and fluoridation. The Frimley Park and Waiaroha projects commenced in 2018 following the adoption of the drinking water strategy, and it is expected the entire capital programme will be delivered early 2023, in priority order associated with drinking water compliance requirements. Graeme Hansen, the Council’s Director of Major Capital Projects says when selecting sites for the new plants the Council looked to retain as much of the existing infrastructure as possible and will collectively service Hast- ings’ urban population of 55,000 people. “The Frimley project involves a range of new water supply bores, new reticulation pipelines, construction of a water treatment plant and an 8-mega-litre storage reservoir. T “he project’s challenge was to find some - where to construct large-scale infrastructure in a well-established urban environment, but near the existing source water. “Public land was our first priority and we were looking for around half a hectare of land that would allow us to build infrastructure the size and scale that was required for water treatment plant and reservoir.” The front of the water treatment plant will be glass, enabling the public to see the workings inside, with signage and electronic information explaining the process at any given time.