Water matters

31.03. 2009

Gosford City Councils aptly named water officer, Dan Waters, is an engineer whos role is to improve water efficiency across council owned properties.

Dan has been involved in the redevelopment of seven clubs on the Central Coast including Wamberal, Terrigal, North Avoca, Avoca, Ocean Beach (Umina), Killcare and Copacobana. The most recently completed project is the Surf Life Saving Club at Terrigal, where greywater from the showers and hand basins is captured, treated and then used to flush toilets.

Dan says Gosford Council has been very proactive about water conservation, energy that is obviously fuelled by the fact that Gosford and Wyong Shire councils also have a role as a water authority.

Council has opted to put in big underground tanks at the surf clubs as this is seen as the most expedient way of improving water efficiency.

In our area, the best long term, cost efficient option is to stick in big tanks, said Dan. Its definitely the most expedient way of reducing the draw and reliance on town water.

Greywater systems require ongoing maintenance and that can be expensive and you also have additional administrative hurdles to leap.

At Terrigal for example, we found we ran into regulatory obstacles when we proposed using recycled water to wash boats, as there was concern that the recycled water would end up in the stormwater.

Consequently, we elected to use the treated water to flush toilets and so we installed the biggest underground tanks we could, as beyond installation tanks are cheap to maintain.