Water reuse and environmental benefits post Sydney 2000
Abstract
The Baseball and Athletic fields of the Sydney 2000 Olympics site incorporated environmentally sensitive designs that are now providing environmental benefits. One of these controls consisted of two ponds that were built to provide water quality treatment and opportunities for reusing water stored in these ponds for irrigating sport fields and hence reduce the demand for potable water. Although the water storage facilities were built, the water reuse infrastructure works were not undertaken at the time due to financial constraints and therefore the fields were being irrigated with potable water. Recently, the price of potable water increased significantly, the local communities and schools demanded additional sporting fields to be built, and Sydney experienced severe drought conditions in 2003 and 2004. Sydney’s water storage dams dropped to less than 40% capacity. Alternative sources of water needed to be considered.
This paper describes the environmental benefits that were obtained from the water quality ponds built in 2000 and then presents the findings of a recent cost benefit assessment undertaken to provide a strategy to meet the increasing irrigation demands and costs at the sports fields using stormwater and tertiary treated effluent.
Author
J. Constandopoulos