Winter was a productive time in the Macalister Irrigation District, and we delivered several important maintenance projects.
Nuntin was a key focus of works, which saw the replacement of an existing 600mm siphon, upgrade of two road crossing s and work to upgrade regulators that were no longer fit-for-purpose.
Simon Wilkinson, General Manager Service Delivery, said the Nuntin projects would improve service to customers.
“Replacing the siphon and upgrading the road crossing at Inverbroom Road will remove bottlenecks in the network and improve downstream flows for customers.
“We have also installed four regulator gates in Nuntin that will reduce manual operation and improve operation of the channel system. More broadly, we have replaced another four gates across the district as part of a rolling three-year replacement program, ” he said.
In other areas of the district, we have completed Stage 1B modernisation decommissioning works in Tinamba and have constructed an access crossing at the Main Southern Channel.
We have also now automated 80 customer outlets in the district that will deliver a more efficient channel network and reduce inconvenience to customers.
We have completed a comprehensive inspection of the Cowwarr Weir offtake tunnel. This is a 180-metre-long underground tunnel that moves water from Cowwarr Weir to the Cowwarr channel, and finally to the Nambrok-Denison Main channel.
The inspection has allowed us to inspect the tunnel’s condition and identify preventative measures to extend its lifespan and reliability.
Channel maintenance
We have completed significant channel maintenance over winter to ensure the network is ready for what’s shaping up to be another strong season. These works included the following:
- Forty kilometres of channel treated for submerged weeds
- Three kilometres of desilting and cleaning of channel near sale
- Thirteen kilometres of desilting and cleaning channels in Nambrok
- Network assessments to improve the signal coverage between our nodes to support ongoing communications
- Communication and Control updates (software) at over 30 sites across the district.
We know some customers experienced delays last season and we understand they are frustrating. Throughout last season, our planners worked with customers to secure orders within our system capacity constraints to find availability within the channel as best they could. They will do the same again this year.
This season we will be implementing the following improvements:
- Re-tuning our control systems in several channel areas to improve the consistency of pool heights that helps with the consistency of flow to our customers.
- Creating new reports and giving our planners new tools to improve efficiency of planning operations, particularly during high demand periods.
- Moving to a new meter reading application for our field staff, which provides better data validation of readings as they are entered.
- Further reviewing our operational rules and models to ensure the most equitable delivery to all district customers.
- These improvements have been informed by a wide-ranging review of our channel system operations and recommendations by expert consultants to identify further efficiencies and improvements.
- Other recommendations in the review require further investigation before we can implement them.
We are looking forward to another productive season and getting water to where it’s needed as quickly and efficiently as possible.