Gold Coast seawater desalination plant pumping at full capacity ...

... but faults not fixed until mid 2010.

Brisbane Times:

Gold Coast desal plant pumping at full capacity

7 September 2009

Construction is finished at the Gold Coast's $1.2 billion desalination plant, and the new complex is pumping at full capacity ahead of its operational handover before the end of the week.

The plant is now pumping out about 3000 litres of water every second.

The first handover, scheduled in the next few days, will transfer operational management from the Gold Coast Desalination Alliance to Veolia Water, who will become the private operators of the plant.

But the plant won't be formally handed over to its owners, WaterSecure, until a number of defects have been remedied.

"At the moment that's looking like some time around the middle of next year," WaterSecure chief executive Keith Davies told AAP.

Mr Davies said a higher grade of steel had been ordered for pipework and this would not be installed until the end of June 2010.

But Mr Davies said at the moment the plant was operating at capacity.

"Today we're running flat out, pumping 133 million litres a day, but the plant has been built with expansion in mind ... something around 170 megalitres (Ml) per day," he said.

"We'd need to put extra equipment into the plant, but that could be done."

The plant is capable of supplying enough water for the daily needs of nearly a million people.

The massive water storage tanks at the plant, which each hold 15Ml of fresh drinking water, are filled and emptied into the water grid more than four times each day.

When the sea water arrives at the plant through a 2.2km-long underground pipeline, it's pumped through mesh screens to remove any large waste.

Mr Davies says it's a tribute to the engineering and construction of the plant, and the quality of local sea water, that virtually no waste has been collected yet.

"Any waste is dropped into a container the size of a small wheelie bin," he said.

"The bin has been in place for almost a year, and so far it's never been emptied."

See - Brisbane Times - Gold Coast desal plant pumping at full capacity.

Where is the water being pumped to ...