New UV Treatment System To Improve Water Quality For Waipukurau

Friday 29 June 2018

The commissioning of the new Ultraviolet Plant located on Pukeora Hill is the start of the final milestone of a large, complex and vital project in securing future water quality for Waipukurau.

Central Hawke’s Bay District Council has been working towards upgrading the Waipukurau Water Supply to meet the requirements of the New Zealand Drinking Water Standards. This work started a number of years ago by assessing the water catchment. A desktop assessment was undertaken of the river system that feed the Tuki Tuki river upstream from the State Highway 2 pumping station. This investigation indicated that the Council needed to upgrade the existing treatment process for the Waipukurau water supply from the basic chlorination system to a more comprehensive UV treatment process.

This month sees the final commissioning phase for stage 1 of the upgrade which involved the installation of two UV reactors. The process has been designed by Opus International who scoped the equipment and provided the construction drawings. The Council engaged with a contractor to install the UV reactors, pipe work and associated control system in a purpose made extension to the existing treatment building on Pukeora Hill adjacent to the reservoir.

The work involved a number of subcontractors from construction of the building by a local builder, general civil works to more specialised stainless stain pipe installation. In addition, Council used the specialist subcontractor to design and install the control system, which manages the UV reactors and dialogues with the existing pump station located on the flat area below the reservoir.

This is the third UV installation the Council has undertaken over the past 3 years, which started with the upgrade to the Waipawa - Otane water supply at Tikokino Road pumping station.

“The new treatment plant work will further improve water quality in line with the new drinking water standards. This is all part of Council’s continuous improvement to the quality of water provided to Waipukurau residents” says Josh Lloyd, Council’s Group Manager- Community Infrastructure & Development.

The commissioning is in progress to make sure the plant is running smoothly and all monitoring is reporting through Council’s telemetry system. We anticipate this work will be completed by the end of June.

18 July 2018

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