Advanced Water and Wastewater Technologies (AWWT) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cardno which was formed in 1994 specifically to target the ever-increasing demand for leading-edge engineering technologies in the water, wastewater and environmental fields.

Wastewater treatment

Cardno’s principal thrust through AWWT has been in the area of Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR) sewage treatment plant design. The company has completed a number of feature projects using this technology.

Cardno designed the Noosa Coastal Wastewater Treatment Plant which is the first design, build, operate project for sewage treatment in Australia. The plant features BNR technology and is now being operated for Noosa Shire Council under a 25 year agreement by Australian Water Services.

Cardno has been involved in all stages of the design and construction of the significant BNR upgrade to the Loganholme Wastewater Treatment Plant south of Brisbane.

For Pine Rivers Shire north of Brisbane, Cardno has been responsible for the design and construction of retrofitted BNR upgrades to the Brendale and Murrumba Downs treatment plants.

Cost effective design

The two most significant aspects of Cardno skills in wastewater plant design are the ability to design augmentation to existing wastewater plants by retrofit, and the utilisation of a proven pre-fermentation process.

Retrofitting existing plants removes the need for costly replacement of entire plants with new BNR facilities, while the AWWT pre-fermentation process ensures superior standards of phosphorous removal.

The process designed by Cardno also allows significant cost savings by utilising relatively short hydraulic retention times, processing the sewage more efficiently at the optimum sludge age and reducing the sizes of tanks required. This allows existing treatment plants to increase their capacity by up to 100%, with consequent reductions in the capital costs and reducing the area of land required for plant expansion.

Similarly for new plants, the pre-fermentation process requires the bioreactors to have typically only 50% of the volume of other processes which significantly reduces capital costs.

Water Treatment

In the field of water treatment, AWWT has recently designed a 50 ML/day conventional water treatment plant at Kamerunga for Cairns City Council and an 80 ML/day direct contact filtration plant at Douglas in North Queensland for the Townsville Thuringowa Water Supply Board.

AWWT has also investigated advanced, state-of-the-art ozonation and reverse osmosis options for emergency water treatment at the Enoggera Dam for Brisbane Water, and a technical feasibility study into potable water reclamation and reuse of effluent from the Coombabah plant on the Gold Coast.

Other major projects include strategy and planning reports for a number of Local Authorities and Water Authorities including Central Highlands Water, Cairns, Dalby, Gold Coast Water, Lismore, Melbourne Water, Redcliffe and Sydney Water.

AWWT and the Cardno group are committed to providing clients with access to the latest in innovative technology, cost effective solutions and personalised responsive service.

For more information, please contact Cardno.