PREMIER DECLARES “DESAL DAY”

Premier Anna Bligh has declared November 30 “Desal Day” to mark the opening of the $1.2 billion Gold Coast Desalination Project.

The Premier said a community event will be held at the desalination plant, where South East Queenslanders will be able to taste its water for the first time.

“This will be a historic day for South East Queensland and I urge everyone to come along to give desalinated water the taste test,” said Ms Bligh.

“For the first time South East Queensland will have a drought resilient source of enough water for up to 730,000 people.

“From November 30 the desalination plant will be ready to pump 40 million litres into our drinking water supplies each day, building up to 125 million litres in January.

“People will be able to tour the desalination plant from the comfort of small buses and learn about how seawater is turned into precious drinking water.

“This is also our chance to thank locals for their patience during construction over the past 2 years and there’ll be something for everyone, from food and entertainment to rock climbing, a jumping castle and sumo suit wrestling.

“Of course, desalination uses a lot of electricity so that’s why we’ve committed to having this plant powered by green energy, as well as having other water supplies that are cheaper and create less greenhouse gases like the Traveston Crossing and Wyaralong Dams.

“There’s still some work left to be done before the first water is produced, with the desalination project around 95% finished.

“Out to sea, a team of divers is still finishing off the return water diffuser pipes on the sea floor, working about 20 metres below the surface.

“But the construction work is now really starting to give way to commissioning, with both the 2.2 km long intake and outlet tunnels flooded and seawater being pumped through parts of the plant.”

Commissioning of the pre-treatment building has involved installing about 3000cubic metres of sand and coal into the 18 filter tanks.

This system will filter most of the organics from the seawater, preparing it for the reverse osmosis operation where under high pressure the salts are removed from the clean seawater as it is pushed through ultrafine membranes.

Once initial testing in the pre-treatment building is complete and the filters have been thoroughly cleaned to produce consistently clean seawater through the system, the commissioning team will move into the reverse osmosis process area to begin introducing clean seawater to the membranes.

The “Desal Day” event is being held on Sunday, 30 November 2008 from 11am - 3pm, at the Tugun Rugby League Club’s playing fields in Boyd Street near the desalination plant.

Media inquiries: Matt Klar 0437 435 223