Keepin’ it Clean

The Lower Molonglo Water Quality Control Centre (LMWQCC) treatment process is designed to ensure that water discharged into the Molonglo River will not negatively affect the environment.

In fact the treated water discharged from the LMWQCC actually plays an important role in keeping local rivers flowing and supporting aquatic life.

During dry periods the treated water can provide a significant portion of the total flow of both the Molonglo and Murrumbidgee Rivers downstream of the plant. Without this discharge the river could run dry causing serious issues for the animal life reliant on the river and for downstream users.

Process Engineer Laura Fuhrman explains, “we’ve got platypuses downstream we want to keep alive and in fact in summer when it’s really quite dry, the proportion of water that we’re discharging can form the majority of the flow in the Molonglo River and a large proportion of the Murrumbidgee river. We’re actually keeping the river alive so it’s very important we get it right.”

Due to this significant contribution to local river systems, maintaining water quality and the effectiveness of the treatment is a high priority.

The treatment process also inhibits algae growth ensuring there are no significant outbreaks of dangerous blue green algae in our water system.

To ensure that these high standards are met extensive monitoring is undertaken to ensure water quality, and ecological monitoring provides information on the river’s health. Even the number of tiny crustaceans and insects are regularly monitored!

Our Team Leader of Impact Assessment and Approvals Ben Bryant explains how this works on ground level across the entire business, “We make sure that the chlorine that’s in our water when it’s released to the environment doesn’t harm our aquatic organisms, we ensure that our environmental flows that we release from our dams are appropriate and meet our license conditions. We also look at our excavated material that we do from our dig ups from our sewerage jobs and our water jobs, making sure that we reuse that material on site where we can, and if not how do we responsibly manage that excess fill.”

Ben says “We work hand in hand with the operators of our plants to come up with environment management plans to reduce the impacts the plant might have. ”

The nitty gritty of environmental responsibility

There are certain regulations that we have to adhere to in order to protect and maintain the health of our environment.

The LMWQCC Environmental Authorisation under the ACT Environmental Protection Act 1997 sets strict licence conditions aimed at protecting the rivers into which water is discharged. LMWQCC meets these licence requirements, including chemical testing and biological monitoring programs. 

We are committed to ecological sustainability, and as such have developed an Environmental Management Program. Under this program LMWQCC became the first sewage treatment facility in Australia to gain certification for the following International Standards:

• AS/NZS ISO 9002 - Quality Management Systems

• AS/NZS ISO 14001 - Environmental Management Systems