Adelaide city parks droughtproofed from 2010 by recycled water piped from Glenelg treatment plant

The Glenelg Adelaide Pipeline (GAP) project delivered recycled water to 163 hectares of city parklands from the Glenelg waste water treatment plant through a 42-kilometre network of purple pipes.
Images courtesy SA Water

Adelaide city’s parklands were droughtproofed, with other major environmental benefits, from a landmark $76 million project bringing recycled water from Glenelg.

A response to the millennium drought’s impact on the parklands, the project was developed by the South Australian government through SA Water, with funding from the national water commission partnered with Adelaide city council.

From 2010, the project delivered around 2.3 billion litres annually of water recycled at Glenelg wastewater treatment plant to around 163 hectares of city parks through a 42-kilometre network of purple pipes to locations across the city of Adelaide and North Adelaide.

Besides its greening benefits, the recycled water, with a higher salt content than drinking water, was used for toilet flushing at major venues like Adelaide Oval, Adelaide Convention Centre, Royal Adelaide Hospital, Adelaide Airport and Bowden housing development. The pristine turf of Karen Rolton Oval, opposite the Royal Adelaide Hospital, and used for first-class cricket matches, was among additional places to benefit from the recycled water network, with up to 40 customers tapping into it by 2020.

Most significantly, this long-term solution didn’t depend on other water sources, including the River Murray. Its other environmental benefits for Adelaide included:

• Reduced discharges of treated wastewater into Gulf St Vincent,
• Increased annual reuse of treated wastewater from the Glenelg plant of more than three times,
• Improved health of the River Torrens and water quality in Torrens Lake. ‘
• Heat reduction by around five degrees during summer for the city centre and surrounding suburbs.

The Glenelg Adelaide pipeline project was one of South Australia’s largest infrastructure works. Its main elements included:
• a new wastewater treatment plant at the Glenelg. The new plant used a mix of ultrafiltration membranes plus ultraviolet and chlorine disinfecting to ensure the water was safe to use and met very strict quality standards.
• recycled water storage tanks and pump station at Glenelg. Upgrades to the plant’s clarifiers, diffusers and ultrafiltration membranes improved the quality of treated wastewater supplying the advanced water recycling plant at Glenelg.
• an underground pipeline from Glenelg to the parklands.
• a pump station and underground storage tank on the edge of the parklands.
• a network of underground pipes around the entire North Adelaide and city parklands.

SA Water was the second largest recycler of water in Australia, contributing around 30 billion litres of recycled water through 16 schemes across regional and metropolitan South Australia.