At the 8th national ASTT Conference and Exhibition, Trenchless Australasia caught up with newly appointed New Zealand councillor for the ASTT Steve Apeldoorn to get his take on the state of the industry.

Steve spoke about the challenges currently facing the trenchless industry and the importance of standards and guidelines for the industry and beyond. He first became involved with the ASTT in 2005 when he presented a paper, Sewer Investigations – Do We Have to Become Buried in Paper?, at the ASTT stream of the New Zealand Water and Wastes Association (NZWWA) conference in Auckland. Since then, he has regularly attended ISTT and ASTT events and been a key player in the industry in New Zealand. Steve was appointed as the New Zealand Councillor for ASTT at the Annual General Meeting in May earlier this year.

Steve was one of the founding partners of the consulting firm ProjectMax in 2002. The company comprises specialist Trenchless Technology Consultants with a focus on pipeline rehabilitation and replacement using lining, pipe bursting and installation using HDD, and pipe condition assessment.

He lives on the Hibiscus coast in Whangaparaoa, just north of Auckland on New Zealand’s North Island, an area which is a popular summertime location due to its many sandy beaches and regional parks.

Promoting trenchless benefits Happy to be attending Trenchless Australasia 2009, Steve stressed the importance of such events and conferences for the development and promotion of the industry. “Opportunities where our members and practitioners are able to discuss, share knowledge and network can only be good for the industry as a whole.”

Concerning the ASTT, Steve said that industry associations such as the ASTT are important as they give individual members of the trenchless industry a voice, and help promote the use and development of Trenchless Technology.

Setting the standards

Steve emphasised the importance of standards and guidelines within the industry. He said that while there are many different technologies, it is important that the industry establishes a set of guidelines and standards so that the basics will always be carried out well, and that meaningful information is available as a guide for the application and use of Trenchless Technology.

He has been an instrumental player in promoting the importance of standards and guidelines for the industry, particularly in New Zealand. With a personal interest in the condition assessment and planning aspects of the trenchless industry, Steve’s company ProjectMax developed the latest edition of the New Zealand Pipe Inspection Manual.

Steve said that writing the manual was a challenging but satisfying task for ProjectMax as it involved getting consensus from a wide range of people in the industry. He also said that ProjectMax is committed to training other companies and individuals in Trenchless Technology and pipeline inspections both domestically and internationally, and is the only company in New Zealand to offer both of these services. Challenges ahead

When asked about the challenges facing the industry, Steve said that the greatest challenges revolve around making people feel comfortable that rehabilitation and installation solutions using Trenchless Technology is a viable choice. Steve said there has been a change in attitude over the past decade as people are beginning to accept trenchless methods of installation and rehabilitation as the practical option.

Whilst Steve recognises that there are many challenges facing the industry, he is definitely doing his part to tackle them head-on. As the ASTT Councillor for New Zealand, Steve is happy that the New Zealand trenchless industry has seen amazing growth since 1993 and is proud to be active in engaging in events and conferences. The ASTT in New Zealand currently organises three forums every year in Auckland, each of which manages to draw about 65 people from all over the North Island.

“We facilitate these forums for the industry to bring people – members and non- members alike – together to be able to share their experiences and learn about the important issues facing the trenchless industry and also to be able to network with other members,” he said. The latest event is the seventh New Zealand Trenchless Technology Forum in late November, discussing site conditions, risks and other challenges of HDD.

Steve’s next step is to involve the ASTT with other industry organisations including participation at the NZWWA conferences in order to increase involvement and engagement.

According to Steve, the use of Trenchless Technology for development of underground infrastructure will continue to become more popular. The recently announced New Zealand Broadband roll out, which he believes to be a very big opportunity for the trenchless industry, is just one example of this. “I think [using Trenchless Technology] will be the natural selection, but it’s important that we and the ASTT advocate for the use of Trenchless Technology for the installation of the new Broadband roll-out.”

Steve said the technology is inevitably the way to approach any future development of underground infrastructure such as the wastewater and water sector.

“I think environmental issues and urbanisation are going to play a big factor. The days of being able to easily use open cut methods are behind us. Emissions and trying to reduce social costs are going to become a bigger factor and the only real way of being able to deal with that is to use Trenchless Technology.”