The sweet taste of success to be decided at Innovation Forum

The sweet taste of success to be decided at Innovation Forum

The sweet taste of success to be decided at Innovation Forum
Date: 03-Nov-2015

On Thursday, 5 November 2015, representatives from over 40 organisations from across Queensland will come together at the second qldwater Urban Water Industry Innovation Forum to exchange ideas and showcase interesting innovations.

While most people are happy when the tap works and the toilet flushes and probably only think about these services when they are paying their bills, urban water and sewerage service providers are constantly tapping in to innovative technologies to maintain and improve high quality, affordable services.

According to Queensland Water Directorate (qldwater) CEO, Dave Cameron, the water industry continues to experience numerous challenges from reduced subsidies for building new infrastructure, downward pressure on prices, red tape reduction and an ageing asset base.

“All of these impact the way water service providers – including councils – manage water and sewerage within their communities. The forum will feature panel sessions on customer engagement, opportunities for partnerships to reduce costs of environmental compliance and technical presentations on field mobility projects, sewage technologies, capacity building, regulation, data and reporting, with Unitywater hosting a tour for delegates showcasing a number of its innovations the preceding day” Mr Cameron said.

“As the key advisory and advocacy body within Queensland’s urban water industry, it gives us great pleasure to see and seed these significant collaborations which ultimately benefit our communities.”

The event will also feature the grand final of the 2015 Ixom Best of the Best Queensland Water Taste Test. Now in its fifth year, the competition is a light-hearted way to promote the hard work of local authorities in delivering quality water services to Queensland communities.

Mr Cameron said the 2015 competition included six regional finals as part of an annual Water Connections Tour that aimed to link Queensland water service providers with technical and management expertise to help plan and support their community’s future water supply and sewerage infrastructure needs. 

With over 350 public water supply schemes spread across Queensland, we are both blessed and cursed with diversity in water quality. Some Great Artesian Basin source waters require little or no treatment to meet Australian Drinking Water Guideline standards, while others from highly impacted catchments need a lot of work.

Delegates at the Innovation Forum will put their taste buds to the test through a blind tasting of the six winning samples from the regional finals, including: 

  • Central Queensland: Livingstone Shire Council's Woodbury WTP
  • Far North Queensland: Cairns Regional Council's Mountain View WTP
  • North Queensland: Townsville City Council's Ross River Scheme
  • West Queensland: Barcaldine Regional Council's Barcaldine Scheme
  • South West Queensland: Balonne Shire Council's Dirribandi Scheme
  • South East Queensland: City of Gold Coast's Gold Coast Scheme

While this competition proudly started in Queensland, it has grown significantly and the winner will also earn the right to compete in the 2016 Water of Origin and national competitions, conducted by the Water Industry Operators Association of Australia and again supported by Ixom.

The program for the event is available here.

Below: Dr Karl at the 2014 Ixom Best of the Best Queensland Water Taste Test. 2014 winner Richmond Shire Council continued their winning streak by beating NSW at the Water of Origin event earlier this year.

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