Transcript No Slide Title

Water Safety
Conference 2010
Greg Oliver
Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management
Aneurin Hughes
Cardno
A New Era of Assessment and Engagement:
Achieving Safe Drinking Water in Queensland
A New Era of Assessment and Engagement: Achieving Safe
Drinking Water in Queensland
•
•
•
•
•
•
Background - Queensland
Regulatory Framework for Drinking Water Quality
Factors Contributing to Drinking Water Quality
Assessment Process
Findings
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Background - Queensland
Pop – 4.4 million
Growth – 2.6% pa (varies across State – (minus 4% to +5% pa)
Large land area
67% of population in south east Queensland
< 2% of population in western regions
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
77 drinking water service providers
SE Qld – 6
Outside SE Qld – 71 (mainly local governments)
353 schemes
Percentage of
Queensland’s population
Serviced by number of
Water Service Providers
84.3 %
18 large providers (>25,000
connections)
14.2 %
26 medium providers (1000
– 25,000 connections)
1.5 %
33 small providers (<1000
connections) including 15
Indigenous councils
Challenges
• Large number of entities responsible for drinking water
quality and supply
• Widely dispersed across large geographical area
• Varied capacity
• Administration of water supply and quality
management at different levels of government
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Water is a hot topic…
E. coli found in
Longreach
water supply
Toowoomba region's water
supply at critical level
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Drinking Water Regulatory Framework
• Water Supply Safety and Reliability Act (2008)
• Stage 1 Jan 2009
― Providers must report incidents
― Supply quarterly monitoring results to department
― Continues until providers have an approved Drinking Water Quality Management Plan (DWQMP)
• Stage 2
― Providers must have an approved DWQMP (elements 2-6) – 1July for large, later for others
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Factors Contributing to Drinking Water Quality
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Drinking Water Scheme Assessment Program
• Some providers (generally small to medium) were experiencing difficulties in
meeting new legislative requirements
• Assessment program implemented across a sample of providers to better
understand challenges and issues facing a sample of small and medium drinking
water service providers in managing the quality of drinking water
Assessment scope
•
•
36 of 61 small/ medium providers
119 of 353 schemes
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Drinking Water Scheme Assessment Program
• Planning
• Survey sheets
–
Provider level
–
Scheme level
• Comprehensive assessment manual developed
• All assessors undertook a 2 day training program
• Assessment included
― Meeting with providers
― Short visit to a sample of schemes and facilities
• Focussed on
―
―
―
―
Provider management practices
Infrastructure condition
Scheme performance, operation and associated water quality risks
Constraints that limit performance
• Analysis of assessment results and other data
• Compile into report
• Feedback to providers
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Findings
Skills capabilities and resources
• Providers endeavour to provide reasonable standard of service
• Short-term focus
• Limited opportunities for strategic management - data analysis, analyse
performance and plan
• < 50% have adequately trained staff, difficult to attract/ retain staff
• Making efforts to train staff
• Interest in support services, particularly monitoring support prior to undertaking
water quality risk assessments
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Constraints to Service Delivery (2009 Survey)
Constraints to Service Delivery
(44 providers - provider opinion)
Ageing
Insufficient
infrastructure revenue
70%
60%
Workforce
skills
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
Insufficient
revenue
Ageing
infrastructure
Inadequate
skills
Inadequate
financial
reserves
Inadequate
planned
maintenance
Insufficient
infrastructure
capacity
Inadequate
scheme
mangement
resources
Inadequate
operational
resources
0%
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Water Sources and Treatment
Source water quality problems
45%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
Softness
Nitrates
Arsenic
Heavy Metals
Low alkalinity
Fluoride
Water
Aggressiveness
Algae
Temperature
Pesticides/Herbicides
Hardness
Colour
Bacterial/ pathogen
contamination
Blue-green algae
Other
TDS
Taste/odour
0%
Iron/Manganese
5%
Turbidity
Percentage of schemes
40%
• Quality - challenges need robust downstream barriers
• Treatment generally adequate
– some inappropriate for source
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Systems and Processes
• Operational practices and supporting systems
– Generally informal
– Over-reliance on tacit knowledge
– Documented operational practices – unavailable or not used
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Infrastructure
Water Treatment Plant
40
35
30
25
Number of
20
Schemes
15
Condition
Operations
10
DWQ Risk
5
0
1
1Unsafe
Neglected
V high risk
2
Deterioration
Poor practices
High risk
2
3
Moderate
Acceptable
Med risk
3
Rating
4
Minor issues
Good practices
Low risk
4
5
Well maintained
Ex practices
V low risk
5
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Facility Evaluation – Reservoirs
(1 - poor/high risk to 5 – good/low risk)
Facility e v aluation - re se rv oirs
70
Number of schemes
60
50
Condition
40
Operations
30
DWQ Risk
20
10
0
1
2
3
4
5
Rating
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Main breaks per 100km (average 2002-2007)
1000
Small WSPs
Breaks per 100km (log scale)
Medium WSPs
Large WSPs
100
10
R2 = 0.1498
1
100
1000
10000
100000
1000000
Number of connections
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Drinking Water Quality
• Provider perception – high to very high standard 88 % indicated few
complaints
• Customer priorities – quantity, reliability, quality – unwilling to pay
• Monitoring programs improve with size
• Analysis of data submitted – general compliance with ADWG – compliance
with parameters not monitored?
• Increased likelihood of E.Coli with smaller providers
• Incident reporting improves with size
• Very early stages of developing water quality management processes
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Management of Drinking Water Quality
• Surveyed providers - average compliance with elements 2 -6 of ADWG DWQ Framework
addressed in DWQMP
Percentage of providers
Implementation progress average of the overall
ratings elements 2 - 6
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
1
2
3
4
5
1. Very limited knowledge,
understanding of
documentation
2. Need for process
understood, limited
documentation
3. Process development has
commenced
4. Process development and
documentation
substantially completed
5. Process and documentation
fully developed and verified
Rating
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Drinking Water Quality – microbiological
Provider
Size
Large
Medium
Small
Total
Number of
providers
reported on E.
coli)
18
29
26
73
Number of
schemes
reported on
E. coli
101
176
44
321
Total number
of samples
taken
7,407
3,298
695
11,400
Number of
samples
detected E.
coli
9
33
23
65
Percentage of
samples
detected E. coli
0.12%
1.00%
3.31%
0.57%
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Financial
Full Cost of Service Vs Revenue
1000
900
$ per Connection
800
700
Revenue
600
500
Full cost of
service
400
300
200
100
0
100
1,000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000
Number of Connections
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Partnership Approach
Local Governments and
Water Service Providers
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
•
•
•
•
•
Implementation of more streamlined and effective regulation
Continuing and expanding the assessment program
Implementation of appropriate pricing principles
Enhancing workforce skills
Evaluating the operational scale of providers
Partnership approach with
• Local Government Association of Queensland
• Qldwater
• Local government service providers
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Implementation of more streamlined and effective regulation
• Rationalise the regulatory burden on service providers and DERM
• Clear performance objectives and reporting
• Roles
– Accountability remains with service providers
– State: audits and reports (transparency)
• Three options
– Regulated business plan
– Regulated performance standards
– Combination of above
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Continuing and expanding the assessment program
• High level risk assessment of all schemes outside SE Qld
• Identify and prioritise risks
– Water source reliability
– Drinking water quality
– Water & wastewater infrastructure performance, capacity & reliability
• Will work in partnership with providers to address high risk schemes through a
development of Priority Action Plans
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Implementation of appropriate pricing principles
• Lack of sufficient revenue – significant constraint
• Reviewing options to improve infrastructure investment by implementing
National Water Initiative pricing principles
• Pricing model developed for use by small/medium providers
• Pricing principles adopted in building 10 year budgets and charges
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Enhancing workforce skills
• National Water Skills Strategy
• qldwater (with LGAQ) are coordinating and leading the development of a state-wide
water industry Skills Formation Strategy – supported by DERM
• DERM collaborating to provide technical support for training institutions to reflect the
needs of water service providers e.g.
– water quality and monitoring
– asset maintenance
– long-term water supply planning
• Investigating the development of minimum mandatory certification requirements for
operators
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Strategies to Address the Challenges
Evaluating the operational scale of providers
• Only 2 States in Australia where urban water provided through local
governments
• Opportunities for gaining economies of scale
• LGs encouraged to seek alternative water service management arrangements
• Some options
–
–
–
–
–
Voluntary binding alliances
LG owned water corporations
Commercialised water businesses within local governments
Staff & skill sharing
Regional groupings of local governments contracting to third parties
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia
Conclusion
• Standard of drinking water services variable
• Dependent on a wide range of factors – finances, capacity, documentation,
people, infrastructure
• Department has entered into a formal partnership with local government peak
representative and technical organisations
• Significant improvement opportunities identified
• Will be implemented through close collaborative approach
Water Safety Conference
November 2-4 2010, Kuching, Malaysia