WA Government to increase capacity of historic Goldfields water pipeline by 2027

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

The West Australian government will spend more than half a billion dollars expanding the capacity of the historic Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, one of the world's longest overland freshwater pipelines.
The so-called Golden Pipeline took five years to build during WA's 1890s gold rush and was commissioned in 1903 as the brainchild of the state's first engineer-in-chief CY O'Connor.
About 40 per cent of the original pipeline remains in use today, supplying drinking water to more than 100,000 people across WA's Wheatbelt, Upper Great Southern and Goldfields regions.
Water Minister Don Punch told reporters in Kalgoorlie-Boulder on Wednesday that $543 million will be allocated in the forthcoming state budget to increase the pipeline's daily capacity by more than 7.2 million litres, or about 10 per cent.
It will be the biggest upgrade of the 566-kilometre-long pipeline in decades.
"We anticipate works will be completed in 2027," he said.
"The design work started out in 2021, so they're well underway and completed, and we're now in a position where works can begin very shortly.
Mr Punch said demand from the resources sector, particularly the booming gold mining sector, was driving the expansion.
"This pipeline has an incredible history and has been meeting the needs of the Goldfields until now, but clearly with the growth that's happening, and the attractiveness of this region, we need to increase water supply."
The proposed works include the replacement of 44.5km of aging pipeline in the shires of Merredin, Westonia, and Yilgarn, with new sections to be installed underground alongside the existing route.
The capacity of the Binduli Reservoir near Kalgoorlie-Boulder will also be doubled from its current level of about 400 megalitres and new valves installed to improve reliability.
Shadow water minister Peter Rundle said the funding was very much needed.
The Nationals MP said the development would see the regional party review the policy of supporting a desalination plant in Esperance that it took to this year's state election.
"It will slow that particular project down, the desalination [plant], but we'll have a look at it for sure," Mr Rundle said.
Work on the pipeline expansion began in 2021 when $15 million was committed towards feasibility studies.
Water Corporation CEO Pat Donovan said the existing capacity of the pipeline was about 75 million litres of water per day, which would increase to about 82 million litres daily after the works were completed.
"It's about a 10 per cent increase in capacity," he said.
The original capacity of the pipeline when it was commissioned in 1903 was 22.7 million litres a day.
Mr Donovan said tenders would be called within the next six to 12 months after detailed design work is completed and he considered the project one of the most significant since World War II.
"Post-war, some of the pipeline was replaced with wooden pipes due to steel shortages, so that was a significant upgrade," he said.
"But in terms of more recent history this is a very significant investment in the future of the pipeline."
More than 60,000 pipes were used in the pipeline's original construction and eight steam pumping stations were capable of delivering 8 billion litres a year, which has since been upgraded to more than 24 billion litres a year.
Mr Donovan said the long-term plan is for the pipeline to be rebuilt with modern below-ground pipe over the next 50 years.
"We will be progressively replacing that over decades to come as we continue to upgrade to improve reliability and meet future demand," he said.
The funding comes as the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder works to deliver a separate project to drought-proof one of Australia's biggest inland cities.
Known as Water Bank, and with an estimated cost of $92 million, the project involves building new dams to harvest stormwater and grow supplies of recycled water to irrigate public spaces.
WA Labor has committed $5 million to the project, while the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder has spent months lobbying Canberra for $9.5 million via the National Water Grid Fund to complete stage one.
There was no word on its application in this year's Federal Budget.