Following several months of closely working with Lendlease, we are pleased to confirm Aquatec Maxcon had been awarded the design and construct contract for the Southern Redland Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant. The project is situated in an exciting, high growth area identified by the Queensland Government's South East Regional Plan, and it is part of the wider project under Redland City Council's Shoreline Plan of Development.

Along with our sister companies MPA Engineering and Maxcon Industries, Aquatec Maxcon is engaged to carry out the process, mechanical and electrical design and construct of this brand new MBR wastewater treatment plant. Our engineering design capability, our expertise in mechanical and electrical fabrication, as well as installation proficiency in South East Queensland enables us to deliver unparalleled solutions. Additionally, our extensive network of global suppliers ensures we are able to source the key packages and equipment to provide the best possible service to the Redland community.

We intend to bring our expertise into the wider project team formed by Lendlease for this project which includes GD< Stantec and Silverstrand.  We look forward to successfully delivering this exciting project for Redland City Council and Lendlease.

Last week during the International Water Association Microbial Ecology and Water Engineering Specialist (MEWE) Conference held in Brisbane, Monita Naicker from Aquatec Maxcon Group and Andy Watson from South Burnett Regional Council hosted a tour of international delegates at the Kingaroy Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Kingaroy WWTP is Australia’s First of three Nereda plants, has won several awards and continues to repay Council with its low operating costs and high quality effluent used to irrigate local sporting fields.

Delegates heard from the Council operators about the features of the plant and shared their operating experiences over the last seven years.

Kingaroy WWTP continues to operate successfully and helps the Council to meet its environmental and community expectations. Aquatec Maxcon is proud to be part of this landmark project. 

Aquatec Maxcon and MPA Engineering have now completed and handed over the new Lamella Clarifiers at the Douglas Water Treatment Plant. At a combined capacity of 177 MLD, this is the largest lamella clarifier installation done by Aquatec Maxcon to date. It has the ability to treat the equivalent of 3 Olympic sized swimming pools worth of raw water from Ross River every hour. The importance of the project in providing water securities for the drinking water of Townsville has been recognised by Townsville City Council at the highest level. On 18th April 2023, our Managing Director Peter Ferrando attended the official opening of the new clarifiers with the Mayor of Townsville, Cr Jenny Hill.
We thank BMD Group and Townsville City Council for the opportunity for Aquatec Maxcon and MPA Engineering to play a key part in this project. It continues our history as a proud contributor to Northern Queensland, which only recently includes major work at Charters Towers Water Treatment Plant, Bowen Sewage Treatment Plant, and ongoing work at Freshwater Creek Water Treatment Plant.

Aquatec Maxcon is now undergoing performance testing of the new lamella clarifiers for Douglas Water Treatment Plant. Even at this early stage, we are seeing great removal of turbidity which is leading to substantial improvement to the filter run time. This has only been achievable with the combined effort of the commissioning team, and a close working relationship between Townsville City Council, BMD, Aquatec Maxcon and Trility.

Following the June 8 explosion at Freeport LNG’s export plant in Texas, which shutdown the second-largest LNG exporter in the United States, Cryeng Group have been expediting the fabrication of vacuum insulated pipe spools to replace the spools damaged by the incident.

By leveraging its material supply chain and utilising its production capacity and extensive fabrication experience of vacuum insulated pipe (VIP), gained from supplying VIP for the construction of the major LNG export facilities in Australia and the Gulf Coast, Cryeng have fabricated priority replacement VIP spools within weeks of the incident to support the Freeport LNG restoration plan.

Priority spools were despatched by chartered Antonov cargo planes from U-Tapao Naval Airfield, nearby to Cryeng Group’s fabrication facility in Rayong, Thailand directly to Houston for delivery to the Quintana Island based facility.

Cryeng’s immediate action and ability to expedite the fabrication of the VIP to the existing project specification has supported Freeport LNG’s planned schedule to get LNG export production restarted. Additional replacement VIP spools are being fabricated and despatched by airfreight from Cryeng to complete the balance of the restoration project.

#Ozwater22 is less than a week away!

This year, the exhibition will be held from the 10th to the 12th May at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre.

#Ozwater22 is Australia’s most important international annual water conference & exhibition and is a major highlight of the water sector’s annual events.

At Aquatec Maxcon, we are continuing our tradition of pioneering new technologies and would love to share our experiences over the past 52 years of business. We are proud of playing our role in introducing innovative solutions to the Australian water industry.

Come and visit us at Stand Number K02!

The Longford Sewage Treatment Plant officially opened its doors on the 8th of February 2022. The ceremonial ribbon was cut by Northern Midlands mayor Mary Knowles, Aquatec Maxcon Managing Director Peter Ferrando and TasWater Chief Executive Mike Brewster. The $33 million upgrade features Nereda® technology, an aerobic granular sludge. The Longford STP is the first plant in Tasmania to use this type of treatment process and the second plant in all of Australia.

Northern Midlands mayor Mary Knowles, Aquatec Maxcon Managing Director Peter Ferrando and TasWater Chief Executive Mike Brewster officially open the Longford Sewage Treatment Plant.

The Tasmanian Water Authority TasWater engaged Aquatec Maxcon (licensee for Nereda® technology in the region) to deliver the design and construct contract for the Longford STP upgrade. The Nereda® process incorporates a granular biological substrate to remove contaminants, with improved nutrient removal. Nereda® technology allows for the use of smaller treatment tanks, is more energy efficient and provides increased flexibility to manage differing strengths of wastewater. Nereda® technology not only has capital cost savings but also improves overall carbon footprint with significant reductions in power usage and operating costs. It is a sustainable alternative to activated sludge processes and is gaining increasing worldwide attention in the water industry. The Nereda® process has a proven track record for successful odour control and was a major factor in the selection of Nereda® for the plant upgrade.

Mr Mike Brewster, TasWater Chief Executive, said, "We are very pleased that the construction of this plant is now complete, it will now benefit the local community for many years to come."

The new plant only requires two people to run it, with modern control algorithms effectively allowing it to operate on its own. The state of the art technology will improve the plant's carbon footprint, power use and operating costs, and the facility can now treat higher loads of sewerage.

Upgrading the Longford sewage treatment plant will significantly improve the quality of effluent discharge and better manage sewage odours that have previously impacted the nearby town. Nereda® technology processes sewage and other wastewater products more efficiently compared with more conventional treatment methods. Additionally, the Nereda® technology is flexible enough to cope with varied capacities of waste water.

The upgrades are expected to be fully completed by the end of March 2022, with the JBS system to be linked to the upgraded TasWater treatment facility. Operators have already begun working out of the newly upgraded facility, with sections of the old facility soon to be decommissioned.

During September 2020, Burdekin Shire Council was overseeing the design and construct of a 5ML reservoir at their Home Hill Water Treatment Plant, bringing the process train in line with best practice. Council was seeking an experienced company to undertake the detailed design and supply of a Containerised Ultraviolet Disinfection System. The upgrade needed to specifically attain log credit to attain a validated deactivation of cryptosporidium (a microscopic parasite) in the water supply.

Aquatec Maxcon Group (comprising of Aquatec Maxcon, MPA Engineering and Maxcon Industries) was awarded the project specific contract during September of 2020. Utilising a local by contract allowed the Burdekin Shire Council to reduce the overheads associated with project management and contract establishment as these components were already in place. Aquatec Maxcon also kept costs low by completing design and project management in house, utilising its internal Electrical and Mechanical divisions to offer seamless design support and a ‘whole of project view’ encompassing pipework outside of the delivered project scope. The exact project requirements were detailed by the Burdekin Project Team and delivered by Aquatec Maxcon Group and its international UV Partner Trojan Technologies. Council received a containerised solution with insulated panelling, duty/standby air conditioners, industrial electrics, roller door maintenance access and all the pipework and UV systems pre-installed and tested. Offsite fabrication and testing assured the "plug and play" containerised Ultraviolet Water Treatment Solution package arrived fully tested and ready to go, built to suit the challenging tropical conditions of Northern Queensland.  

Aquatec Maxcon is proud to continue to design, supply, deliver and support the Trojan UV fleet in North Queensland. We are proud to add Burdekin Shire Council to our list of installations and ongoing clients in the region.

Aquatec Maxcon and Charters Towers Regional Council's "Collaborative Design Approach and Use of Innovative Process Technology to Upgrade the FEJ Butcher Water Treatment Plant" was shortlisted as a finalist in the 2021 Australian Water Association (AWA) Queensland Water Awards for the Infrastructure Project Innovation (Regional) Award.

The Infrastructure Project Innovation Award (Metro and Regional) recognises significant and innovative infrastructure projects within the water industry that drive prosperity and sustainability. Projects that may be included in this award are those which involve new or upgraded infrastructure (physical or digital) which have delivered improved outcomes for the organisation, community and/or industry.

Judging criteria for the award includes the following:

• Project is original and/or innovative or has other outstanding features which sets it apart from common practice among comparable projects 
• Project has relevance to the Australian water industry and is future focused
• Demonstrates tangible benefits - social, economic, environmental and/or cultural
• Evidence that the initiative was carried out or completed during the two years preceding the nomination date

Whilst we did not win the award this year, we are extremely proud of what we have achieved at Charters Towers and we are thrilled to have been nominated and been presented with the opportunity to share our achievements with a wider audience.

A little bit about the Charters Towers Water Treatment Plant Upgrade Project

When put out to market during December 2017, the Charters Towers contract was originally a refurbishment project. The initial aim was to reuse the already existing assets present in the plant without building new infrastructure. Had this original plan gone ahead, the plant is likely to have struggled to achieve quality targets. Aquatec Maxcon’s alternative offers incorporated innovative, modern and more efficient technologies as alternatives to the requested refurbishment.

The Alternative Options presented by Aquatec Maxcon were as follows:

• Alternative Option One involved the construction of brand-new clarifiers and gravity filters.
• Alternative Option Two involved reusing the existing clarifiers but utilising brand new gravity filters.

Both of these alternative options meant that new assets would be constructed whilst the existing plant was still running. Once the new assets were commissioned, the old assets would then be taken off line, with no interruption to supply.

Charters Towers Reginal Council considered the options available and agreed to select a revised process for the construction of the new plant.

The Benefits of the Alternative Options

The new direction offered several benefits to the region including:

• Building new assets allowed the current plant to remain in operation whilst construction proceeded.
• Increased water stability to the region through modern design with consideration to future legislation.
• Securing long term economic certainty by providing reliable water under all weather conditions.
• Protecting public health through the use of new technology.

Through this innovative and collaborative process, the project teams of Aquatec Maxcon and Charters Towers were able to interactively identify and replace process bottlenecks before the final design was completed. Aquatec Maxcon worked openly and collaboratively with Charters Towers Regional Council. Major process equipment items, in particular the filters, were identified as inherently limiting to the plants capability and, even when refurbished, would likely restrict the plant's capacity compared to alternative approaches.

Successes and Benefits of the Project

• The alternative option selected by Council delivered the water treatment plant project without imposing any water restrictions on the residents of Charters Towers. The original plan would have seen water restrictions for up to 12 months. This success can't be understated in a remote and regional area of Queensland, considering the original solution of 12 months restrictions was originally accepted as the only solution.
• Later stages of the project were successfully delivered during the evolving COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, an unprecedented event that disrupted operations on a global scale. Aquatec Maxcon managed to deliver the project despite global upheaval.
• The residents of Charters Towers now possess a new, efficient water treatment plant that surpasses the capacity, flexibility and security that Council originally set out to achieve. The water supply will support a historical gold mining industry in the region catering to many tourists. (In addition to tourism, two significant gold mining operations located nearby Charters Towers City (Ravenswood Gold and Pajingo Gold) employ many of the town’s locals.)
• The innovative use of lamella plate technology used in the Charters Towers Water Treatment Plant has a much smaller footprint compared to larger and more conventional clarifiers.
• The newly upgraded plant is energy efficient and eliminates water wastage. The previous plant possessed no digital feedback or monitoring facility for the key raw water quality parameters that would call for a process adjustment in order to maintain water quality. The former plant consumed an excess of chemicals and power in stark contrast to the modern technology present on site today.
• Aquatec Maxcon invested almost 30% of the contract value of the new treatment plant into local north Queensland and Charters Towers businesses that was then redistributed throughout the community.
• Charters Towers has a rich and varied cultural history. Approximately 10% of the Charters Towers population is made up of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Aquatec Maxcon worked with local companies that represented local Aboriginal people who were engaged to work on the project
• Charters Towers enjoys a thriving tourism industry built around its cultural history. The upgraded plant helps to secure the future of Charters Towers tourism through the secure supply of consistent and high-quality treated water.

Aquatec Maxcon is proud to have been nominated and presented with the opportunity to share our achievements at Charters Towers.

Aquatec Maxcon congratulates TasWater on the successful recommissioning of the refurbished Primary Digester at the Prince of Wales Bay Sewage Treatment Plant located in Tasmania. We are very proud to have been a part of this successful project which included the design and construction of a new floating digester gas holder roof and new sludge heating system.

Our Project Manager, Jim Foley, had the difficult task of delivering this project despite the impacts and challenges posed by COVID-19. We are extremely proud of our team’s ability to continually meet milestones and deliver results despite continued delays and complications as a result of the current global pandemic.