Tours

Technical Tours

Tour #1 - Water Recycling Plant and Education Centre Tour
Wednesday, November 17
9:00 am - 2:00 pm
Fee: $55 per person (includes lunch)
Limited to 50 people

Sydney Water is opening a Water Recycling Education Centre in late 2010. The centre aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the current and potential role of water recycling in securing Sydney's water supply, how it is produced and what is considered when planning water recycling projects. It will also showcase Sydney Water's use of innovative technology.

The main audiences will be tertiary students and lecturers; secondary school students and teachers; professional and trade groups (e.g. engineers, scientists, plumbers) and interested key stakeholders. The focus will be to build and integrate the learning into existing curriculum and course material and features a suite of audio visual technologies.

The centre has been built as part of Sydney's largest water recycling plant, which is operated and maintained by Deerubbin WaterFutures on behalf of Sydney Water. This plant uses reverse osmosis technology to supply recycled water for release to the Hawkesbury-Nepean River. It replaces up to 18 billion litres of drinking water that until now has been released from Warragamba Dam to assist the health of the river.

Participants will be given a tour of the water recycling plant and an overview of the education centre. The session will take approximately two to three hours and will include a light morning tea. Transportation to and from the site will also be organised.

Tour #2 - Sydney's Desalination Plant Tour
Wednesday, November 17
9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Fee: $45 per person
Limited to 30 people

Sydney Water's state-of-the-art wind powered desalination plant was switched on in February 2010 and is operated and maintained by Veolia Water. The plant uses reverse osmosis technology to treat sea water so that it can provide water to meet up to 15 per cent of Sydney's water needs. It is part of the NSW Government's Metropolitan Water Plan to ensure Sydneysiders continue to have a secure water supply into the future. Water from the desalination plant reaches up to 1.5 million people as part or all of their water supply.

A 67-turbine wind farm at Bungendore in New South Wales has been purpose built to generate enough renewable energy to offset the energy use of the plant. An important part of the project was to keep any environmental impacts - both on land and in the water - to a minimum. To support this, Sydney Water has monitored the marine environment for the past three years and will continue to monitor for three more years to ensure they can detect and respond to any changes.