CAQA ClearFlow Water
CAQA ClearFlow Water is a regional water corporation that supplies drinking water to about 68,000 people in eleven towns, collects and treats their sewage, and delivers irrigation and stock and domestic water through a gravity channel network to farms across the district. The business draws raw water from a river offtake and a groundwater bore field, treats it at the Kialla plant, and moves it through 1,400 kilometres of mains, 32 pump stations and 19 service reservoirs. Wastewater flows through 720 kilometres of sewers to the Mooroopna plant, where treated effluent is recycled to a dairy pasture irrigation scheme under an environmental licence.
The business runs from a head office and control centre in the Shepparton region, two treatment plants, a northern depot and a rural water office. Water and wastewater operators work a rotating roster with a day shift, an afternoon plant shift and an on-call standby crew for the network and control centre outside hours. Six departments report to the Managing Director: Water Treatment, Wastewater Treatment, Networks and Maintenance, Catchment, Dams and Storages, Control Centre and Water Quality, and Customer and Trade Waste. The control centre monitors every site through the supervisory control and data acquisition system 24 hours a day.
Drinking water safety is managed through a risk management plan built on the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, with critical control points at coagulation, filtration and disinfection and a verification sampling program that is reported to the health regulator. Wastewater discharge and recycled water are managed under an operating licence from the environmental regulator. Safety is managed under the Victorian occupational health and safety framework with permit systems for confined space entry, excavation and chemical handling, and dam safety follows the national dam safety guidelines with annual inspections and instrumentation monitoring.