Conference Papers | 2009 Conference Papers

PRACTICAL ISSUES IN COMMISSIONING A SIMPLE STORM WATER HARVESTING SYSTEM FOR WATER QUALITY

Gordon King, Director of Technical Support, B2P Australia

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ABSTRACT

Ku-ring-gai Council in Sydney has been very active in promoting water harvesting and re-use schemes. The St Ives Bowling Club decided to install a storm water harvesting system to replace their reliance on town water as previous drought restrictions had caused damage to some greens. Their Development Application required water quality testing to occur over a six week period which included sampling after at least one high rainfall event. The E. coli levels had to comply with the NSW DECC Level 3 guidelines (<1000/100ml).

The commissioning period actually extended to 4 months with storm water irrigation having to be used throughout this time. This had not been envisaged by the various authorities involved. The reasons for this, the design of the sampling protocol used and the variation in the results and its implications are discussed. B2P field test kits were used and some brief comments are made with regard to their use and comparative laboratory tests carried out on these samples.