A desalination water treatment plant at Noraville is on the agenda, with Central Coast Council submitting a State Significant Infrastructure project to the NSW Planning Department.
The proposal is to build and operate a desalination plant, including a seawater extraction pipeline at either Pebbly Beach or Jenny Dixon Beach, needing a pipeline at least two kilometres in length.
The leftover brine would be added to the Toukley Waste Water that is discharged at the existing Norah Head ocean outfall.
Council is seeking approval to build the desalination plant adjacent the existing Toukley Wastewater Treatment Plant on vacant Council-owned land in Noraville
“The project is required to enhance water security for the Central Coast region, particularly during drought events, and to supplement the demand-supply shortfall forecasted for the Central Coast region in the 2040s,” the report to the planning department states.
The project is intended to “contemporise” the current approval that applies to a Gosford Wyong Water Supply Desalination Scheme, granted in July 2007.
Changes include an increase to the capacity and size of the desalination plant, and a change to the location and method of seawater extraction.
Following a review of environmental legislation and consultation with the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure, it was determined that a new state significant infrastructure approval would be the appropriate pathway for the modified scheme.
Council is now calling it the Toukley Desalination Water Treatment Plant.
The project includes construction and operation of a seawater extraction pipeline with an intake point approximately one kilometre off the coastline at either Pebbly Beach, located about three kilometres southeast of the desalination plant, or Jenny Dixon Beach, located about two kilometres northeast of the desalination plant.
The project will encompass a seawater pump station at either of the locations nominated; a reverse osmosis desalination plant to treat up to 30 megalitres of potable water per day, the brine discharge pipeline connection with a brine volume of about 45 megalitres per day, a water pumping station and a connection to the existing potable water trunk supply network at Toukley, along with upgrades to power and water supply connections.
The Council report said ongoing refinement of the proposed layout and technology would continue throughout the environmental impact statement process in response to engineering concept design refinements and outcomes of environmental and social assessments.
The first step is the current request for a SEARS, which is a list of environmental factors that Council will need to address as part of the project’s plans.
The desalination plant is identified as a long-term supply option with the flexibility to be implemented as a drought response measure as part of the Coast’s June 2023 Water Security Plan.
The desalination plant is Sydney is a disaster. What hope is there that this will succeed. Follow the money trail