Australian Water Association Podcast Series 4: Recent Episodes
Australian Water Association
The Australian Water Association's Podcast Series brings you water industry information, projects and research from professionals working in Australia and abroad.
Ruth McDonnell talks about the role of water utilities in land management and biodiversity.
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Saravanamuthu Vigneswaran, an emeritus professor from the University of Technology, Sydney discusses household water filters for removing arsenic and other pollutants in Vietnam.
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Kristy is the Education Lead at Hunter Water. She discusses with us educating students through gamification
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Sean is Director of KPMG's Frontline Operator Centre of Excellence. He discusses with us the future of frontline operations in the water sector.
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Cameron is the Future Specialist Environment and Water at Urban Utilities. He discusses with us using digital twins in planning for environment protection and liveability.
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Zoubir Ait Mansour, Asset Knowledge & Performance Consulting Engineer at SUEZ speaks with Ellen Fanning about a practical approach to balancing risk and cost and Unitywater's sewage treatment plants assessment. They talk about how Unitywater is strongly focused on optimising value to their customers by achieving acceptable compliance risk at lowest life cycle cost. In line with that objective, they’ve decided to implement the Suez practical framework to asset failure risk, asset condition and projects prioritization on 11 sewage treatment plants in the Sunshine Coast.
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Ryan Brotchie, GHD’s Service Line Leader for Integrated Water Management and Karey Wills, Sewerage Networks Operations Engineer at Icon Water speak with Ellen Fanning about Canberra's 50 year sewerage strategy. In developing the long-term strategy for the ACT’s sewerage system, Icon Water identified that they are operating in an environment of change and uncertainty. An Adaptive Pathway Planning approach was therefore used. They discuss key drivers of change and uncertainty and how they developed five plausible future scenarios.
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Elizabeth Christian, Asset Performance Manager at Lendlease and Daniel Watson, Manager Partnerships and Asset Systems at Coliban Water speak with Ellen Fanning about Lendlease's and Coliban Water's journey to continuously challenge and optimise Coliban Water’s preventative maintenance (PM) program. They discuss the development of a bespoke ‘Maintenance Strategy Optimisation’ (MSO) process which is based on the principles of Reliability Centred Maintenance and talk about lessons learned.
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Kristina Campbell, Associate Director at KPMG speaks to Ellen Fanning about capital investment approaches and tools. They discuss the findings of a review into current Australian capital investment decision making approaches and considerations for Australian utilities to implement better practices.
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Christopher Raynor, Process Engineer; Pramod Janardhanan, Service Planning Senior Analyst and Ronica Koey, Senior Communications and Engagement Officer all at Sydney Water speaks to Jo Taranto about the ‘Poo Switcheroo’, a retrofittable valve to improve sanitation in India they secured them them 2018 WaterAid Winnovators challenge.
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Joel Spry, Demand Management Coordinator of Minor Centres and Schools for Northern Territory Power and Water Corporation speaks to Jo Taranto about creating a generational change in regional attitudes. They discuss some of the challenges Katherine has faced in delivering safe drinking water in it's worst wet season on record.
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Dr Michael Di Matteo, Senior Environmental Engineer at Water Technology speaks to Jo about smart stormwater storage systems. Michael was involved in a research project that used machine learning optimisation methods to evaluate the potential benefits and costs of a range of urban stormwater storage retrofit options. This was done for an urban catchment in the City of Unley, Adelaide, Australia
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Richard Greenwood, Principal Consulting Engineer with Jacobs New Zealand speaks with Jo Taranto about how a dairy plant can be water and carbon neutral. He explains how New Zealand's dairy industry is moving towards plant production with a fully integrated approach to the recovery of water, nutrients, energy and waste streams.
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Mark Vaughan, Alliance Manager at Logan Water Infrastructure Alliance speaks to Jo Taranto about one of Australia's most sustainable wastewater treatment plants, the Cedar Grove Environmental Centre. It will be the QLD’s first wastewater treatment plant to benefit the environment by reducing nutrients in treated water to record low levels, polishing treated water in constructed wetlands, and offsetting any remaining nutrients through riverbank restoration projects.
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Mark de Jong, Senior Environmental Officer in the SA Department for Environment and Water and Phil Staniford, Manager for KBR’s Water & Environment consulting business in SA and WA speak with Peter Dredge about the South East Flows Restoration Project which was established after the Millennium Drought to manage salinity levels in the Coorong South Lagoon and prevent further ecological degradation. They discuss the question if local ideas and collaboration will secure the future of the internationally significant Coorong.
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Hemant Ojha, Director at the Institute for Studies and Development Worldwide speaks with Peter Dredge about climate risks to water security in the Asia-Pacific region. They discuss key lessons and insights from a review and synthesis of existing knowledge and responses to water insecurity in the region.
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Adam Jones, Principal Engineer and Water Efficiency Lead for BMT speaks to Peter Dredge about drought adaptability of large commercial and industrial water users. They talk about key learnings from visiting, assessing and liaising with a wide range of water users across NSW in the context of drought – and highlight a significant and potentially surprising capacity and willingness to adapt.
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Ben Furmage, Chief Executive Officer of the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities speaks to Peter Dredge about a guide and supporting tool kit for choosing, financing and funding options for addressing urban flooding.
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Madelyn Pardon, PhD Candidate at James Cook University, speaks to Peter Dredge about understanding threat perception to inform environmental communication. Threat perceptions are known drivers of behaviour. This is particularly important for environmental issues, where human behaviour may mitigate the impacts of such threats. Communicating threat information to increase mitigation behaviour presents multiple challenges to a number of stakeholders. Given the likelihood of Australia experiencing water security issues in the future due to anthropogenic climate change, gaining a greater understanding of individuals’ threat perceptions as they pertain to water security may assist in the development of more effective communication strategies in the long-term. Her research highlights the complexities of communicating environmental threat information, more specifically information relating to water security threats.
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Philip Joyce, Technical Director and Leader of the Waterways and Stormwater Team in GHD’s Melbourne Office, speaks to Peter Dredge about the Water Sensitive Drainage and Flood Strategy, developed by the Fishermans Bend Water Sensitive City Working Group. The strategy collaboratively explored the potential to use distributed flood storages in streetscapes and open spaces (i.e. a green infrastructure approach) as an alternative to the ‘baseline’ drainage infrastructure plan (i.e. conventional drainage pipelines and pump stations).
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James Goode, Asset Management Program Coordinator at the Water Services Association of Australia and Steven Nash, Manager of Operations at Goulburn Valley Water speak to Jo Taranto about the management of asbestos cement pipes now and into the future. They discuss the legacy risks associated with asbestos pipes, including best practice guidelines for replacement and maintenance.
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Mark Babic, James Wallace and Lucas Finch from Sydney Water speak to Jo Taranto about maximising employee performance and wellbeing through an employee lifecycle approach. They discuss how employees are supported throughout their working lifecycle, including how they're supported when they return to work following an injury.
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Icon Water's Ben Wood, Team Leader for Health & Safety Services and Michael Nolan, Health & Work Fitness Coordinator speak to Jo Taranto about a workplace health, safety and wellbeing program called Live Well. They discuss the initiatives that helped improve hazardous manual tasks including the implementation of an onsite physiotherapy program for field staff.
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James Ryan, Business Systems Coordinator at Allwater speaks to Jo Taranto about keeping people safe while working alone. They discuss the concerns that were raised by staff working alone and the measures that were put in place to protect their workforce and make them feel safe and secure at all times.
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Terry Mulvaney, Manager of Risk Compliance & Audit at City West Water speaks to Jo Taranto about implementing a new and streamlined enterprise management system. They discuss the process of assessing the organisation's risk profile and identifying a system that could bridge disparate systems, combine data from different areas, and enhance their service delivery.
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Clare Hesketh, Senior Media Advisor at SA Water speaks to Peter Dredge about using social media to influence customer behaviour and awareness. They discuss the communications campaigns that were rolled out to build public awareness around sewers, the people involved and the work that goes on behind the scenes to remove blockages (like fatbergs) from sewers.
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Sydney Water's Nathaniel Jenkins, Customer Experience Design Lead and Greig Priestly, Innovations Project Manager, Networks Assurance speak to Peter Dredge about the importance of engaging customers around innovation. They discuss the utility's emphasis on customer-centricity and how community forums helped them identify what customers want and how and when they want to be contacted.
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Chantal Keane, Senior Technical Officer in the Chemistry section of SAS Laboratory, an Urban Utilities business speaks to Peter Dredge about the flushability of wet wipes and toilet tissues. They discuss how every wet wipe on the shelf, marketed as 'flushable', was tested and the associated cost of removing these wipes from sewers.
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Andrew Woods, Strategic Analytics Manager at Sydney Water speaks to Peter Dredge about customer water use behaviours. They discuss how smart meters were used to study the patterns of household water flows and the correlation between weather events and household water use.
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Dr Suzy McDonald, Water Treatment Technologist at Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water (GWMWater) speaks to Ellen Fanning about the risk of lead leaching from water meters. They discuss the contaminant concerns around brass plumbing and fittings on the quality of drinking water supplied to households.
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Veronique Bonnelye, Technical Support Manager at SUEZ Australia & New Zealand speaks with Ellen Fanning about removing toxic compounds, like PFAS, from drinking water. They discuss a case study in Pennsylvania, USA where a new water treatment plant was installed to remove contaminants from the drinking water supply.
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Dr Ji Lu, a recent PhD graduate from The University of Queensland speaks with Ellen Fanning about antibiotic resistance. They discuss the impact of non-antibiotic anti-microbial (NAAM) chemicals, which can be found in over-the-counter products like toothpaste and hand wash, on spreading antibiotic resistance in sewage.
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Sydney Water's Jack Budgen, Graduate Process Engineer and Anna Flack, Science Research & Innovation Coordinator speak to Ellen Fanning about how their small-scale study of kitchen taps is leading to changes in national recommendations and policy review. Their study demonstrated that water users can reduce flushing time from thirty seconds to five seconds to reduce lead concentrations in drinking water.
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Lisa Andersons, Coordinator Water Quality at MidCoast Council, speaks with Ellen Fanning about improving public health, one water main repair at a time. They discuss the change management approach that was adopted to identify and manage risks around water contamination between the sewer network and the drinking water catchment.
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Johanna Johnson, Sustainable Projects Lead for Logan Water at Logan City Council and Mark Thomas, Design Manager with Downer Utilities speak to Jo Taranto about biosolids gasification in Logan City. They talk about the Loganholme wastewater treatment plant, how it's reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing costs for the city, and providing a valuable end product.
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Chris Hertle, Water Market Leader - North America at GHD speaks with Jo Taranto about hydrogen reduction in wastewater treatment, biosolids management and how the water sector is using waste as a resource. They talk about the evolution and process of reducing hydrogen in wastewater and those in the industry who are changing the way we think about wastewater management.
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Icon Water's Sustainability & Resource Recovery Coordinator Joel Edwards and Project Delivery & Maintenance Supervisor James Gibson speak to Jo Taranto about spoil reuse and how it's contributing to a circular economy. They discuss how they're reducing the amount of material going to landfill and maximising value from waste.
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Steven Lam and Hilary Chiang from Gradiant, a water technology company, speak to Jo Taranto about how water is used in the textile industry and the ways textile factories are moving towards more sustainable processes for waste disposal and water reuse.
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Justin Frank, Chief Customer Officer for SUEZ ANZ speaks with Jo Taranto about driving the change towards a circular economy, particularly through the Smart City Initiative in the French city of Dijon and a similar project in Singapore that looked into smart water metering.
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