2018-02-06 Services & Organisation Committee Agenda

SERVICES & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                6 FEBRUARY 2018




Landfill tours for adults are very popular               Recycling second hand clothing

3.    PEOPLE

A casual administration officer worked in the Waste Section for four months to assist in the
implementation of the new contract particularly the roll out of the garden waste bin services and
to cover long service leave. Other staff numbers and positions remain constant.

4.    SYSTEMS & PROCESSES

Environmental
Desilting the sediment pond
The sediment pond requires regular desilting that required the sediment pond to be emptied of
water before the silt could be manually removed from the dry pond. Several attempts to empty
the pond in dry periods resulted in rainfall filling the pond before it could be desilted. During the
period an innovative system of desilting the stormwater sediment pond at the landfill was
implemented using shore based pumps in a dredging style operation with filter socks to capture
sediment and water passing back to the pond, overcoming the need to empty the pond.
Refinements to this initiative will be implemented in the future.

Environmental Compliance
Leachate Pump Failure at Landfill
The leachate pumping system to sewer consists of two electric motors each connected through a
gearbox to a wet end pump. Each system pumps for a short period and then the other system
automatically intervenes to provide a rest period for the operating system. If there is a failure in
one system there was sufficient redundancy for the other system to meet demand in an
emergency situation.

Towards the latter part of the year there was a power failure at
11.30pm at the Tewantin office that shut down the computer that
monitors leachate pumping systems at the landfill. This
computer and SCADA system warns of rising leachate levels in
the pump well and alerts staff and external contractors to
manually intervene and correct any fault. Coinciding with the
Tewantin power failure, a wet well pump controlling the pumping
of leachate to sewer had a catastrophic failure. The inactive
Tewantin computer did not alert staff of the pump failure. This
resulted in an overflow of the leachate pump well, flooding adjacent electrical motors and pumps
in the adjacent dry well and causing significant damage to both systems. Leachate pumping
equipment took 16 weeks ex Melbourne to repair/replace and rising leachate levels in the lined
landfill necessitated manual transport of leachate to a sewage treatment plant at significant cost.



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