Introduction

The City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters is committed to reducing water consumption within the community and in its own operations and has endorsed:

• A 10 per cent reduction in mains water use for Council operations by 2010 (based on 2004 levels): and
• A 5 per cent reduction in mains water use by the residential community by 2016 (based on 2004 levels).

Current Activites

The Council’s current activities include:

• Installation of innovative new technologies to reuse swimming pool backwash water for irrigation, reducing mains water consumption and lessening the stress on the sewer system – saving approximately 850,000 litres of water annually
• Installation of a new irrigation system for the lawn areas to be irrigated with backwash water
• Installation of auto off taps in the change rooms to reduce mains water consumption and electronic auto-off controls for the showers in the change rooms to reduce the amount of mains water used – these save approximately 395,000 litres of water annually
• Installation of waterless urinals in all Council buildings (including libraries) to reduce the amount of mains water used
• The capture and reuse of rainwater from the roof of the Sir Edwin Smith Pavilion (grandstand) at the Norwood Oval for use in toilet flushing, bathing and hand washing in the Norwood Football Club change rooms and public toilets – saving up to 500,000 litres of mains water per year
• A city wide saving of 27 million litres from addressing water conservation and irrigation in Public Open Space since 2007-8, by converting irrigation infrastructure (where possible) in landscapes such as roundabouts and garden beds in streetscapes, from sprays to drip irrigation and turning off some irrigation systems. This has been in accordance with State Government water restrictions.

Planned Activites

The Council’s planned activities include:

• As part of the redevelopment in mid 2010 of Dunstan Grove / Linde Reserve at Stepney, the Council is proposing to install a bio-filtration system to capture and reuse stormwater and create a landscape feature at the north west corner of Linde Reserve. Bio-filtration is a water treatment process which cleanses stormwater of pollutants and organic matter by running the water through a system of plants, soils and microbes. This natural filtration environment, filters and absorbs the pollutants and enables the water to be collected in a buffer chamber for aquifer injection. It is proposed that a small underground tank will be installed to store the water at Linde Reserve. It is estimated that 35 mega litres of water could be captured at this site using the bio-filtration system and reused to irrigate the lawn area at Linde Reserve.

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