Achievements

The Gold Coast Desalination Plant and Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme are part of the SEQ Water Grid, the largest urban drought response in Australia. The schemes themselves are quite an achievement as the Gold Coast plant is the first large-scale desalination facility on Australia’s eastern seaboard and the Western Corridor scheme is the largest water recycling scheme in the Southern Hemisphere and one of the world’s largest.

Throughout the construction period the projects reached significant milestones and achievements in safety, innovation and construction, and also won numerous national and international awards; these continue now that we are operational.

Safety
Both projects achieved phenomenal safety records, an achievement that becomes even more significant when the pace, scale and complexity of construction is taken into account.

The GCD Alliance worked more than 4.3 million hours while achieving a Lost Time Injury (LTI) rate of only 1.16, well below the construction industry standard. The Alliance was able to complete two million work hours completely LTI free.

The Western Corridor schemes five construction alliances worked more than 7.2 million hours and achieved an LTI rate of only 2.21. The Bundamba Alliance was able to complete construction of the entire plant with no lost time injuries at all.

Awards
The Western Corridor Recycled Water scheme has won 13 awards (seven international, two national and four state), including:

• 2008 Water Project of the Year – Global Water Intelligence
• 2008 International Project of the Year – Construction Management Association of America
• 2008 Grand Honour Award for Project Innovation – International Water Association
• 2009 Water Reuse Project of the Year – Global Water Intelligence
• 2009 Industry Award – South East Queensland Healthy Waterways
• 2009 Advisory Excellence Award (Evans & Peck), National Infrastructure Awards – Infrastructure Partnerships Australia

The Gold Coast Desalination Plant was named the 2009 Membrane Desalination Plant of the Year by Global Water Intelligence.

Innovations

• The schemes were constructed under tight time frames and combined with factors such as space restrictions and minimising environmental and social impact created a culture of innovation with construction alliances looking for a better way, a faster way, a safer way to complete work.
• Both projects were constructed using and alliance structure. Alliancing allows flexibility, brings together specialists from various industries and creates a collaborative culture where decisions are made on best-for-project outcomes.
• Horizontal directional drilling was used to complete four crossings under Bulimba Creek, Aquarium Passage and the Brisbane River. This trenchless method causes less disturbance to these sensitive wetland environments and existing local infrastructure.
• Energy recovery devices and high-efficiency pumps were installed at the desalination plant, making it one of the most energy-efficient plants in the world, reducing costs and carbon emissions.
• A section of the Western Corridor pipeline consists of three parallel sections, which were constructed simultaneously to save time and money and reduce community disruption. The triple pipeline is a rare engineering feat.
• The inlet and outlet tunnels that bring water in and out of the desalination plant were chosen over pipelines to minimise the impact on the local community and environment.
• While traditional open trenching methods were used to construct most of the pipeline at the Gold Coast, microtunnelling was used to cross underneath Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creeks to reduce impact on the waterways.
• The Gibson Island and Luggage Point advanced water treatment plants constructed fully functioning pilot plants that reproduce the full-sized plants’ process at a small scale in order to test technology and performance.
• A SafetyBox Robot was created which allowed quicker and safer pipelaying to occur by eliminating the need to box out deep open trenches.