16-Aug 10: Barwon Water, based in Victoria, recently awarded Aqua Environmental a contract to survey 185km of water mains in the Geelong CBD for leakage. The contract, which starts today, will see Aqua have a three-man crewdeployed for the duration of the contract.

Aqua has held two contracts with Barwon Water; having previously completed leakage surveys in the small town of Colac and in some more rural areas outside of the Geelong CBD.

The reduction of leakage in CBD areas can be difficult due to limited access to fittings and customer properies and the higher than usual pedestrian and traffic noise. Aqua’s crew will determine suitable times to complete the survey to ensure an effective survey with positive outcomes for the Client.

We find water leaks in underground pipes for residential customers, plumbers and water utilities.

With over thirty years experience in the water industry we are able to customise all our services to meet Client requirements; including providing active leakage surveys, trunk main leak detection and urgent leak detection for residential customers.

Our dedicated team of highly skilled Leakage Technicians are focused on exceeding our Client expectations by continually attaining outstanding results on all projects.

Our employee health and safety is paramount on all work sites and we have extensive procedures in place to ensure employee and public safety is never compromised on any of our sites.

We currently hold internationally certified accreditation for Occupational Health and Safety Management, Quality Management and Environmental Management and continually update these processes to align with the progressive nature of our business.

Two Senior Leakage Technicians were mobilised for this project they detected a total of six individual leaks during the pilot; including some that were estimated to be losing close to 30 litres per minute.

Aqua Environmental has completed a number of projects under this state and federally funded initiative and look forward to working with more regional water authorities in NSW.

We were engaged to detect leaks in a number of small towns including Foxton, Shannon and Tokomaru, several small beachside communities, and the main centre of Levin. This is on the back of some strong work for HDC which we completed in May 2009.

The results were once again extremely positive with a total of 47 leaks located during the survey. This excludes smaller leaks that our Leakage Technicians were able to repair during our normal scope of work and Customer Side Leaks.

As an added benefit we provided field asset verification during our survey of each of the towns. Since we had a strong data set from our previous survey in May 2005 we were able to provide feedback on faults that remained unattended to allow prioritised rectification by HDC repair crews.

Aqua Environmental has a strong presence in Australia and New Zealand and is available for all leak detection services, water loss management and SmartBall trunk main leak detection surveys.

per year in the Sydney metropolitan region.

Our involvement with Sydney Water dates back to 2000 when we were first involved in a Pilot Leak Detection Project.

Sydney Water invests around $100 million each year preventing water main leaks through a range of programs including its comprehensive Leakage Reduction Program for the water reticulation and trunk main system.

This Active Leakage Reduction Project is for acoustic scanning for water reticulation leaks and losses within Sydney Water’s Reservoir Zones, and is one of a range of leak prevention measures undertaken by Sydney Water.

This contract includes visual and acoustic examination of fittings (including hydrants, valves, house service lines and scours) followed by the use of suitable leak detection equipment (such as correlators and ground microphones) along water mains in the area, connections to the mains, and on the house service mains and connections to meters.

All detected leaks are to be reported in real-time by our Leakage Technicians in the field to Sydney Water, who will arrange for repairs to be carried out.

• What is Sydney Water doing to prevent leaks?
• How do I check if I have a customer side leak?
• View the latest Sydney Water Monthly Leakage Report.

If you require any assistance in your leak detection program or with a customer side leak please contact us.

They are Yarra Valley Water’s leakage technicians, and their work could save up to three billion litres of water lost to stormwater drains and ground seepage.

More than 1000 leaks have been detected so far this year and plans are to step up efforts to plug leaking pipes in Banyule.

Yarra Valley Water managing director Tony Kelly said technicians would cover about 350km of piping across the municipality

Electronic listening sticks can “hear” a leak from a water meter, hydrant or tap, and ground microphones will detect leaks through the ground.

Technicians then use a leak noise correlator machine to pinpoint the leak and where the water is escaping from the main. Mr Kelly said some leak detection work would be conducted at night in areas difficult to operate in during the day.

But residents could also play a role in detecting leaks in their neighbourhoods, Mr Kelly said.

Signs to look out for include unusually green patches in the nature strip, which could indicate underground pipes are seeping; the sound of running water coming from drains; and large volumes of water running from pipes into a creek or drain, especially when it hasn’t been raining.

Download both articles which featured in the Heidelberg Leader and Maroondah Journal.

regular attendees at these conferences in recent years and they add real benefit to our business services and allows us to convey latest techniques, methods and technologies to our Clients to ensure they remain at the forefront of the water leakage industry.

The events also provide a time for us to discuss with other leading water loss practitioners and equipment manufactures and assess how we can alter our current range of services to ensure all Clients receive international best practice.

Water Loss 2010 is intended to present and discuss the latest developments, strategies, techniques and applications of international best practices in water loss assessment, management, leakage reduction and control, and improvement of customer metering.

In Sao Paulo this year the topics that will be covered include:

• Leakage detection
• Leakage reduction
• IWA strategies for water-loss reduction
• Pressure control
• Leadership issues related to reducing water losses in distribution systems
• Benchmarking water losses
• Management techniques for reducing losses in developed and developing countries
• Training schemes for reducing water losses
• Research into reducing leakage apparent losses
• Management benefits from reducing water losses

The IWA decided the conference should be brought to the South American Region in order to address the pressing need for improved water utility efficiency in this part of the world.

The WLTF is one of the task forces of the IWA Specialist Group “Efficient Operation and Management of Urban Water Systems”.

The WLTF develops and promotes international best practices in water loss management. This includes the initiation of (and the participation in) research projects to keep at the forefront of new developments. One of the most important aspects of the Task Force is to provide guidance and assistance to water utilities in establishing and implementing the most appropriate water loss strategies and policies.

The host organisation in São Paulo is Sabesp which is a state owned utility that provides water and sewage services to residential, commercial and industrial use in the São Paulo and in 367 of the 645 municipalities in São Paulo State. It provides water to 25 million customers, or 60% of the population of the state.

We will provide feedback to our Clients after the conference about the direction of the industry and any new developments which we feel could be implemented in an Australian or New Zealand environment.

Our Crew was on site for less than 30 minutes and the leakage location was identified and the Client had starting co-ordinating repairs.

The pipe was 63mm MDPE – a very difficult pipe material (plastic) in which to find leaks due to its poor acoustic properties. Situations like this require a highly skilled Leakage Technician to assess the site and determine which methodology and equipment to use. Each of our Leakage Crews has a range of acoustic leakage detection equipment; including leak sounding sticks, ground microphones and leak noise correlators.

Aqua Environmental has formed a strong reputation not only for it’s Leakage Survey services but more also it’s ability to locate leaks promptly in difficult circumstances. Often we are called after failure by other operators to locate the leaks – likely due to their limited exposure to such situations. We complete a large number of reactive leak detection jobs each month and have experience in the detection of leaks in sizes from 20mm to 1700mm.

Aqua Environmental has fully equipped Leak Detection Crews around Australia and New Zealand for mobilisation at minimal notice.

For details on rates and availability please contact us.

The level 6 water restrictions are:

• Residential Gardens – Use of sprinklers, micro-sprays, fixed and hand held hoses are BANNED, Gardens can be watered by bucket only.
• Car washing is only permitted on grass areas with a bucket
• Washing of driveways & paved areas – BANNED.
• All sports grounds (including public parks & gardens, school grounds) – sprinklers are BANNED
• All other essential water use associated with commercial and industry operations of business is permissible.

Recycled water, bore water and water used for testing fire systems, fire fighting and related activities are excluded from restrictions.

Under the Local Government Act an on-the-spot fine of $2,200.00 may be imposed for breach of the water restriction regulations.

Level 7 restrictions will be applied and details widely advertised should the dam level fall below 8% capacity.

Aqua Environmental will use a very high resolution leakage survey technique, which we have also used to complete other projects under NSW Water Loss Management Program. The environments encountered are particularly challenging due to the high proportion of non-metallic water mains and require combination of highly skilled Leakage Technicians and customised product selection due to the low noise frequency.

The project is due to commence in early April 2010 and will take approximately one week to complete. Oberon is approximately 200km west of Sydney.

recognises the consistently high results we have attained since engagement in November 2008 and asked us to complete more work.

We have a full-time crew of six Leakage Technicians based in Melbourne to provide active leak detection services for this Client; most involved since we commenced the contract 18 months ago.

In the past few years, Victoria has had strict water restrictions due to extreme drought conditions. These were eased slightly this week when Victorian Premier, John Brumby, announced that water restrictions would be relaxed from Stage 3a to Stage 3.

The shift away from the harsh 3A bans, which restricted outdoor water use, will start on Good Friday. The change means home owners will be able to water their gardens every second day. Details on the water restrictions can be found here.

Aqua Environmental is Australia and New Zealand’s leading provider of water main leak detection services with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Auckland. We currently complete in excess of 12,000km of active leakage detection survey on reticulation water mains each year.