Shoalhaven City Council has won two awards in the 2021 Institute of Public Works Engineering Australasia (IPWEA) Excellence Awards.
The awards recognise the most outstanding public works engineering projects and professionals. Council has won the Environmental Enhancement Project or Initiative Including Recovery, Recycling and Reusing Award for Shoalhaven Water's Reclaimed Water Management Scheme (REMS).
Council has also won the prestigious Minister for Local Government's Award for Innovation in Local Government Engineering for the Shoalhaven Indoor Sports Centre after the project was entered into the 1C Projects greater than $5 million category.
Shoalhaven City Council CEO Stephen Dunshea is pleased with the recent accolades.
"These awards highlight the innovation, skill and dedication demonstrated by Council staff who have gone above and beyond in the provision of infrastructure and services for our community.
"The importance of great infrastructure in the health, wealth and happiness of our community cannot be overestimated," Mr Dunshea said.
"Shoalhaven Water developed the REMS scheme to reduce potable water consumption, minimise the impacts of a rapidly expanding population and drought, and to protect our unique and valuable environment," said Mr Dunshea.
"The REMS enables collection and storage of treated effluent or reclaimed water for use on agricultural land and local sports grounds via a dedicated transfer and distribution system.
"To date Shoalhaven Water has successfully implemented two stages of the scheme. The Stage 1B has effectively doubled the reclaimed water supply managed by the scheme to 13 million litres per day," Mr Dunshea said.
Stage 1A collects reclaimed water from St Georges Basin, Huskisson/Vincentia, Culburra, and Callala Wastewater Treatment Plants (WwTPs). Stage 1B Works entailed major upgrades to the Bomaderry and Nowra WwTPs and construction of associated reclaimed water transfer main beneath the Shoalhaven River.
Mr Dunshea is also delighted with the Minister for Local Government's Award for Innovation in Local Government Engineering for the Shoalhaven Indoor Sports Centre at Bomaderry.
"Constructed in October 2019 at a cost of $16.4 million, the Shoalhaven Indoor Sports Centre is the only one of its kind outside the Sydney metropolitan area. It is fitting for the Centre to be acknowledged for its innovative design that is already benefiting our community," Mr Dunshea said.
The Centre has the capacity to cater for large-scale sporting and other events, with show court and grandstand seating for 600 people, along with three further multi-purpose courts, meeting rooms, offices, fitness facilities, change room facilities, commercial café and creche with a building area spanning 5,703 m2.
