Council have completed major overhauls to one of the region’s main water recycling plants which services more than 63,000 residents.
In what was a coordinated effort of spring cleaning between both council and specialist contractors, the Mackay South Water Recycling Facility (MSWRF) underwent one of the biggest maintenance projects ever undertaken by council at a water treatment plant.
Council said the Bakers Creek facility is an integral part of the region.
Mayor Greg Williamson said after council took management of the facility back in 2019, investigations were undertaken to assess its condition and asset life.
“It was essential the facility was maintained in order to continue to provide the best outcome for our water recycling scheme and to future-proof it for the growing population of our region,” Mayor Williamson said.
The key assets at this facility are its four sequence batch reactors (SBRs), or processing tanks, which treat the wastewater.
These SBRs are aerated by racks of pipe-mounted diffusers that pump air into the water to assist with breaking down the pollutants.
“In order to ensure the highest quality water was being produced, the diffusers across the four batch reactors were replaced,” Mayor Williamson said.
“This was a process that took place over three months and with a huge team effort between contractors, council’s own maintenance operations teams and our environmental and laboratory staff.”
Each SBR, holding over one million litres of water each, had to be taken offline and emptied one at a time so that plant operations could be maintained with only reduced capacity.
Once emptied, the solid waste remaining in each tank had to be removed – over 100 tonnes from each tank – in a massive operation for council and MSWRF.
