3rd Party Infrastructure on Reservoirs
Date: 29-Jun-2017
The qldwater Technical Reference Group identified a number of issues relating to telecommunications installations on water infrastructure earlier in the year, and we have recently commissioned the development of a set of guidelines, in partnership with the NSW Water Directorate. Risks including safe access to infrastructure and radiation are often front of mind, but as assets age, the risk to drinking water quality (e.g. holes from poor installations allowing contamination) increases.
The work will be undertaken by Murray Thomson with support from Aqualift.
NSW WD is also developing legal guidance and agreement templates for its members. This is a costly exercise and the qldwater TRG accepted advice from various members that it would be best to invest our limited resources towards strong operational guidance materials and support for positive negotiations with telcos. Federal telecommunications legislation is seen as very powerful and we are not aware of successful legal challenges.
When complete, the materials will include:
- A summary of the issues likely to be faced by water authorities when dealing with telecommunication equipment installations, the long term need to address and rectify these issues, and some practical examples of how water authorities can improve control of their sites and assets.
- A simple summary of relevant telecommunications, health and safety and drinking water legislation.
- Model guidelines, policies and procedures.
- Model installation requirements for telecommunications equipment.
- Practical content to support model site access and management agreements for telecommunications installations.
- Safe access to reservoir sites with telecommunications installations.
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