Thank you for your interest to be involved in the Eyre Peninsula Desalination Project.

SA Water is keen to understand the current interest and capabilities of local businesses in Port Lincoln (and surrounding Eyre Peninsula towns).

Project background

The Eyre Peninsula Uley South Basin is a prescribed resource under the Water Allocation Plan (WAP) for the Southern Basin and Musgrave Prescribed Wells area and provides approximately 75 percent of the drinking water supply to the Eyre Region. The remaining supply is sourced from the River Murray via the Morgan-Whyalla pipeline.

The Uley South Basin is the last remaining major productive groundwater source on the Eyre Peninsula that is suitable for supplying drinking water to the region. It is therefore a critical asset with respect to water security of the Eyre Peninsula.

Findings from investigations and modelling conducted by the Department for Environment and Water show if water extraction from Uley South continues at current rates, there is an increasing risk of further environmental decline and irreversible damage from saltwater intrusion.

Should the Uley South Basin become irreversibly damaged, there would be no remaining groundwater source that could sustain a reliable drinking water supply for the majority of the Eyre Peninsula. This has been assessed as being an unacceptable risk to SA Water.

The last SA Water long-term plan for the Eyre Peninsula was published in 2008, which recommended that a new water source is required. A seawater desalination plant located in the lower region of the Eyre Peninsula was identified as the most favourable augmentation option.

The primary drivers for this Project are:

long term water security for the Eyre Peninsula;

sustainable environmental water source management and protection of the Uley South Basin; and

The secondary drivers for this Project are:

- to enable economic growth within the Eyre Peninsula; and

- to achieve water quality improvement for the Eyre Peninsula.

To achieve the project outcomes, SA Water is building a new 16 megalitres (ML) per day (ML/d) or 5.3 gigalitres (GL) per annum (GL/annum) desalination plant and all necessary associated infrastructure, such as infrastructure for sourcing the seawater, treating the seawater, transferring the treated drinking water to our existing network system, and returning the saline concentrate from the desalination plant to the ocean.

Specific key elements of the Project include:

- A seawater intake and outfall pump station, located within an existing SA Water wastewater treatment plant (WWTP).

- Seawater intake and outfall pipelines, located within a tunnel under the shore from the pump station into the marine environment at Boston Bay.

- Lighting and security fencing for the pump station.

- A desalination facility, located approximately 600 m south-west of the pump station, which will include within its boundary:

a. Feed water pre-treatment system

b. 5.3 GL/annum desalination plant, incorporating a reverse osmosis (RO) treatment system (equivalent of 16 ML/d)

c. Post-RO water treatment, including remineralisation, pH correction, and disinfection

- Seawater transfer and saline waste pipelines, extending from the pump station to the desalination plant.

- An underground desalinated water transfer pipeline (DWTP) extending for approximately 7 kilometres (km) from the RO desalination plant to the existing SA Water North Side Hill tanks on Blue Fin Road, Duck Ponds.

- A 11 kilovolt (kV) aboveground transmission line extending west of the desalination plant for approximately 3.3 km, including power poles.

- A new vehicle access point for the desalination plant facility from St Andrews Drive and

- Potential laydown areas for terrestrial and marine works which will be identified in consultation with Council and local landholders as part of the detailed design phase.

The desalination facility itself will also incorporate the following additional components:

- bunded and impervious areas for the handling and storage of chemicals associated with the RO desalination plant

- transformer(s), power cabling and switchgear for distributing power within the site

- site offices and amenities

- internal access roads and parking areas

- stormwater management infrastructure

- other buried services across the site

- lighting, security camera poles and security fencing with vehicle and pedestrian gates

- a storage shed.