Port Waratah has taken out a Love Water Love Business Award for outstanding results in our Carrington Coal Terminal’s water management and efficiency improvement initiatives.
In total Port Waratah has invested more than $21 million at the terminal on water management system upgrades over the past five years. Initially the projects focused on storm water management with the attention turning to potable water consumption throughout the recent drought.
CEO Hennie du Plooy was very proud to accept the Love Water Award at the Business Hunter ceremony, thanking Hunter Water for sponsoring the award and raising the profile of responsible portable water consumption across the region.
“Port Waratah is very conscious of minimising potable water use and investing in water saving and efficiency initiatives,” said Mr du Plooy
“We focused on the most efficient utilisation of water resources to reduce potable water consumption and maximise the reuse capabilities of our water management system.
“This year, a third large stormwater storage tank at the Carrington Terminal was constructed, raising the total capacity for capture and storage of water to 21ML during rainfall events. To give an idea of the size and scale of the tank, it has a diameter of 31.5m, is 11.5m tall and holds more than three times the volume of an Olympic swimming pool,” he said.
Stored water is reused at Port Waratah sites for operational activities such as dust suppression, machine cooling and washdown. Water used on site is recaptured and cleaned for further reuse.
“The favourable environmental conditions paired with these improvements in water management has cut potable water purchasing by 51% at Carrington Terminal so far this year, compared to the same time in 2019,” said Mr du Plooy.
“We have achieved these results not only through infrastructure but an ongoing business cultural awareness to conserve water use in our day-to-day operations. At Port Waratah, we’re committed to playing our part to reduce potable water consumption, improving the sustainable use of our shared water resources in the Hunter.”
In what was an award-winning week, Port Waratah proudly celebrates two additional awards including the NSW Professional Services accolade at the Project Management Achievement Awards and the outstanding effort of one of our team members recognised as part of the HunterNet Future Leaders Program.
On Tuesday 16 November, the Australian Institute of Project Management announced Port Waratah took out the NSW Professional Services Award in this year’s Project Management Achievement Awards in recognition of the progressive development and implementation of our Project Management System Upgrade.
The upgrade led by the Assets and Infrastructure team centred on the complex planning of our major assets and infrastructure maintenance outages, which require 18 months of pre-planning to be delivered on time, every time to keep our operations running efficiently with minimised unplanned downtime.
We now go up against the Professional Services Award winners from other states for the National Award, which will be announced in March next year.
At a HunterNet ceremony for the 2021 Future Leaders Program last Thursday, Leigh Carroll, Supply Supervisor in the Commercial Services Team, was part of the winning team to present an innovative solution to combat COVID-19 business impacts and improve economic resilience.
The team’s solution was focussed on establishing community bonds and connection with small and unique businesses that have lost their market presence.
“I would like to congratulate Leigh and his team on their success and their commendable effort to research and develop an idea to support small businesses not only in the Hunter, but could be adopted across Australia,” said Mr du Plooy.
