A key wastewater pipe serving thousands of Sunshine Coast residents has been renewed as part of Unitywater’s $400 million infrastructure replacement and renewal program, which will upgrade water and wastewater assets over the next five years.
The 200-metre section of pipe, which supports about 17,500 Caloundra residents, was upgraded using a specialised relining method that avoided major excavation works and service disruptions.
Relining wastewater pipes extends their useful life while delivering customer and cost benefits in comparison to full pipe replacements. It helps reduce odours, improve network efficiency and operability.
Unitywater executive manager sustainable infrastructure solutions, Mike Basterfield, said the job was completed while the pipe was ‘live’ with no interruptions to wastewater services for customers.
“Hydrogen sulphide, the gas produced in wastewater, can be corrosive and over time, can deteriorate infrastructure,” Mr Basterfield said.
“This pipe was in need of renewal, and our team chose the spiral relining method with PVC, which allowed them to carry out the work in a live wastewater pipe under active flow.
“This method is much less disruptive to the community and more cost-effective than if we were to completely replace the pipe, which requires open-cut trenching and coordination and shutdown of assets while these works take place.”
Mr Basterfield said a comprehensive, proactive program was used to identify which assets need to be renewed, including cleaning programs and jet blasting to clear debris build-up and blockages, CCTV to clearly see any issues inside pipes and removal of tree roots.
“Tree roots are one of the biggest culprits causing blockages and subsequent overflows, with the potential to impact the community and the environment,” he said.
Mr Basterfield said the works were carried out in collaboration with specialist contractor Pipe Management Australia over three days, including one day of pre-cleaning works, one day to install the liner and one day installing end seals and performing a CCTV inspection of the new pipe condition.
