Dalby Coal Seam Gas Water fact sheet ...

Project Information

21 April 2006

Redevelopment of the Dalby Water Supply through the Integrated Use of Coal Seam Methane Water, Recycling and Demand Management

Dalby, Queensland

Total funding: $10 million with funding of $3.33 million from the Australian Government plus GST, $5.37 million from the Dalby Town Council and $1.30 million from Arrow Energy.

About the project

The project will showcase an Australian first — the use of coal seam methane water for potable water supply. As a by-product of the geological coal formation process, water within coal seams traps methane gases. The project involves construction of a pipeline and a preliminary treatment and reverse osmosis plant to treat the coal seam methane water. The project will also see the existing Waste Water Treatment Plant upgraded to produce Class A recycled water for use in Dalby and further development of the council’s water demand management programme. The project is reliant on an agreement between Arrow Energy and Dalby Town Council to supply the water for the project.

Project benefits

The project will:

- enable the council to initially return up to 1350 Megalitres a year of extraction licences to the regulator from over-allocated systems — potentially increasing in the future to 2250 Megalitres a year

- benefit the environment through reduced demands on over allocated systems demonstrate the innovative treatment coal seam methane water as a source of potable water supply

- increase recycled water use for urban irrigation activities, and

- develop and implement an enhanced water demand management programme for the Dalby shire.

The project will advance the National Water Initiative objectives of dealing with over allocated systems and securing urban water supplies.

See - Dalby Coal Seam Gas Water fact sheet.