Introduction

Since 2002, Bamboo World has been progressively building nursery infrastructure, mostly new growing areas. These growing areas were constructed, with the aim of implementing best nursery practice. This includes measured efficient sprinkler patterns and grading/lining growing beds so that run-off water is collected and channelled to storage for recycling.

By 2008 we had constructed many areas with graded drainage but lacked the storage capacity and distribution to connect these areas. On 1st March 2008 we received approval for a COMMUNITY WATER GRANT PROJECT (CWGP) from the Australian Government Water Fund. This grant provided a 50% funding incentive to implement our recycling project.

The grant funded 50% of the contract services and materials, enabling us to complete our water recycling. Additionally, Bamboo World supplied the engineering design, project management, excavator machine time and some hardware (pumps, filters etc.).

The scope of the project was to:

  1. Install graded gravel drains, transfer sumps and transfer piping in our 5000m2 shadehouse.
  2. Interconnect all growing area drainage discharge to storage facilities.
  3. Construct a lined 2.2ML dam as the main bulk storage facility c/w pumphouse and aerator
  4. Install a concrete sump and pump as a transfer point.
  5. Install 2 x 34,000 L storage tanks and relocate our irrigation pumping facilities to suit.
  6. Add process control equipement to monitor and control the above system.

On Monday 23rd November 2009 we started using our new dam as our water supply, while still finishing off other areas of the project. Since the flowmeter was installed in Jan 2010 our nursery has used 2.2ML to 1st March 2010. The project is now complete at 1st March 2010. We have already effectively saved approximately 3ML from being drawn from our local creek system. To date we are remaining self sufficient in our irrigation water usage.

This collection of web pages is designed as an educational tool to illustrate how we have gone about implementing our recycling system. Some of the content included may be beyond the scope of our CWGP in order to give a more complete picture of the overall job.