It takes a lot of water to maintain a golf course, particularly in summer. And in these dry times, greening fairways and greens with drinking water is not a sustainable option. But by using recycled water for irrigation, a golf course can have a more secure and sustainable water supply for the future. 

 

Mining for liquid gold at Sunshine Golf Club

One such golf club we are working with is the new Sunshine Golf Club. Located at the north-east corner of Mt Derrimut and Middle Roads, Derrimut, the Sunshine Golf Club course is a championship course, designed by Australian golfer Craig Parry and Pacific Coast Design. To help keep the fairways and greens in top condition, recycled water will be supplied to the club via a sewer mining project.

The project is one of the first sewer mining works to be built in a developed area of Melbourne and will save 80 million litres of precious drinking water every year.

We will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the sewer mining treatment plant as well as the recycled water infrastructure.

What is sewer mining?

The sewer mining process involves using a small scale treatment plant to draw waste water from a nearby City West Water sewer, with the treated water being available for a variety of uses such as irrigation. Solids are returned to the sewer for further processing within the sewerage treatment system.

Specifically, the sewage treatment for this project involves:

• in-sewer screening to break down waste
• pumping of screened wastewater
• fine screening
• treatment including extended aeration as well as sand filtration to comply with    
pathogen control requirements of the Class B standard
• UV disinfection

In this case, treated wastewater is then stored in a large earthen dam which has the capacity to store 32.5 million litres. Although the golf course is mainly irrigated during the summer, recycled water is produced year round to enable the treatment and storage of enough water to meet the high demand during summer. Stormwater is used to supplement the water supply and irrigation of the course occurs using a mixture of the recycled water and stormwater.

The treatment plant, which occupies an area of approximately 1,000m2, will operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and has the capacity to provide approximately 91.25 million litres of recycled water per year. The plant was commissioned in August 2008.