Over the past year, Sydney Water’s frontline crews have worked to respond to the impact of drought that caused soil movement, leading to a contraction of pipes in the ground and an increase in damage to the network.
Recent rainfall brought on new challenges, triggering a landslip and eroding the Toongabbie Creek embankment in Wentworthville, near Parramatta.
Sydney Water Incident Site Manager John Daoud said crews attended the site immediately to investigate and found a wastewater carrier had been impacted by the erosion of the creek bank.
“We quickly mobilised our equipment onsite, set up a by-pass to protect the environment and connect with the existing wastewater while we worked to identify a permanent fix of the pipes,” said Mr Daoud.
“This is just a snapshot of what we do every day – while most people are in self-isolation, our work didn’t stop because of COVID-19.”
Additionally, Sydney Water said its crews are taking advantage of the quiet streets – particularly in Sydney’s CBD – to prioritise repair and upgrade projects, including replacing a number of valves that would be difficult to complete under normal circumstances of traffic and customer impacts.
Sydney Water Head of Program Delivery Mark Simister said network projects are also seizing the opportunity of the quieter streets during COVID-19 to do work which might normally be disruptive.
“We are being as agile as possible in the way we program our works so we can minimise the impacts of the projects to customers now and once lockdown restrictions are lifted,” said Mr Simister.
For more information visit Sydney Water.
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