Gosford / Wyong Water Supply

When Gosford / Wyong Councils, in conjunction with Hunter Water Corporation, required geotechnical and environmental investigations to be undertaken in building 30km of water pipeline, they called on Douglas Partners’ expertise to assist.

The $45 million project was the initiative of Gosford/Wyong Councils with the Hunter Water Corporation in response to the worst drought on record and continuing depleting water storages to the 285,000 residents on the Central Coast. The project, jointly funded by the Commonwealth Government in conjunction with Wyong Shire, Hunter Water Corporation and Gosford City Council, enabled an average of 35 mega litres of water a day to be pumped from the Newcastle catchment area to the dams in the Gosford-Wyong region.

In 2005 and 2006 DP completed detailed assessments of the subsurface conditions along approximately 30 km of the Stage 3 main pipeline alignment in two stages: Wangi to Dora Creek; and Morisset to Warnervale.
In 2007, DP completed geotechnical and environmental assessments for several large diameter pipelines (Stage 4), which were aimed at boosting the overall capacity once the main project came online. These investigations were in the Teralba, Fennell Bay, Boolaroo and Rathmines areas.

Julie Wharton, Senior Geotechnical Engineer commented “The project was a critical piece of infrastructure for the Wyong / Gosford area, and with dam levels at such low levels, each component of the project was on an incredibly tight timeline. Construction commenced quite soon after each of
the investigations was complete. We worked in tandem with the designers, providing them with as much
information as we could as soon as we could to help with the project schedule. We were able to respond quickly and tailor the scope of work for each project component based on the most efficient means of getting the information at any given time.”