Offshore construction has kicked off at the Belmont desalination plant in NSW, with a direct ocean intake structure and tunnelling pipeline to be built.
This infrastructure will deliver seawater from a recently installed offshore jack-up barge located about 800m off Nine Mile Beach to an onshore treatment facility.
“Now that the jack-up barge is in place, we’re progressing into the most complex and technical phase of the marine and tunnelling works, crucial to delivering a reliable, rainfall-independent drinking water source for our community,” Hunter Water acting chief executive officer Jennifer Hayes said.
The Belmont desalination plant is being built to supply up to 30 million litres of drinking water per day – equivalent to about 15 per cent of the Lower Hunter region’s average daily demand.
The facility will diversify the region’s water sources by reducing the reliance on dams and rainfall, while strengthening resilience against climate variability and drought.
“We selected Belmont as the site for the desalination plant because it offers the best integration with the existing water network and proximity to the ocean, as well as being a site Hunter Water already owned that will cause minimal impacts on the local community and surrounding environment,” Hayes said.
Hayes said the plant’s marine and tunnelling works were designed to minimise impact to the environment.
“The intake structure has a low velocity design ensuring sea creatures avoid being drawn into the system, while the brine left from the seawater desalination process will be returned to the sea via the existing ocean outfall at the nearby wastewater treatment works,” she said.
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