Wyong is the Winner of the IPWEA Excellence Awards

Last Tuesday, the IPWEA's Excellence Awards Gala Dinner was held at the Crowne Plaza in Terrigal. The Water Directorate proudly sponsors the Excellence Award for Innovation in Water Supply and Wastewater at these awards each year. Once again the standard of entries in this category was very high and the range of projects across all IPWEA Excellence Awards categories was very impressive.

This year the winner of this award was Wyong Shire Council for the Mardi-Mangrove Link Project, a joint project with Gosford City Council. The award was accepted by Greg McDonald, Director of Infrastructure and Operations, Wyong Shire Council. The Mardi-Mangrove Link, with funding of $120M, is the largest and most innovative infrastructure project undertaken on the Central Coast in over 25 years. The pipeline is a key element in securing the region’s water supply for the next 40 years. Excess water flows are transferred from Wyong River and Ourimbah Creek to the region’s major storage dam at Mangrove Creek via 21 kilometres of pipeline and two pump stations. 

The pipeline was innovative in its planning and design, optimising community outcomes and focussing on environmental considerations such as the Nation’s first integrated fishway and flow gauge. It has permitted more effective use of existing infrastructure and resources, provided increased environmental flows to the Wyong River and optimised energy use and life-cycle costs. Adopting collaborative contracting techniques facilitated innovative engineering construction solutions, such as an Australian first for the longest directional drilling for a pipe of its size and type.

In addition, Greg McDonald, a member of the Water Directorate's Executive Committee, was awarded the IPWEA Public Works Leader of the Year. Congratulations Greg from your colleagues at the Water Directorate for your outstanding achievement. 

The highly commended award in this category was awarded to Liverpool Plains Shire Council for the Quipolly Dam Safety Upgrade and Increased Storage Capacity Works. This project cost a total of $6.2M and following the upgrade Quipolly Dam is also able to be used as a source for the nearby town of Quirindi as well as facilitating Council’s strategy to improve their adaptation to climate change and growth capabilities.

The safety upgrade component has reduced the dams risk category to now pass a 1 in 100,000 flood event. An integrated design brief to include increased storage options gave a value added approach to the mandatory safety works. Increased storage was achieved by utilising an innovative, low maintenance, tipping bucket system installed in the existing spillway. The eight precast concrete units gave an effective 2m additional height of water in the storage and an increased volume of 2.8GL from 5.2GL to 8GL.

Congratulations to both award winners and to all the nominees in Category 3 this year. We look forward to continuing our sponsorship of this award next year.