News - Apex Envirocare Aqua Barriers & Sediment Removal

Comprising a collection of towns such as Northam, New Norcia, Toodyay and York, the Avon Valley is home to many unique communities. Communities that over the past decades have seen a steady growth in their size with the emergence of the “Valley’s” popularity as a tourist destination and as an attractive place to live and work. Working in the town’s Wastewater Treatment Plant this recent maintenance campaign set out to restore the capacity of the reticulation pond by dredging 35,280 m3 of it. Together with the other primary ponds, this pond forms the single system that supports the town’s wastewater management program, a very vital part of the town’s infrastructure.

West Lake (near the Narrows bridge) in the heart of Perth CBD is a substantial lake surrounded by beautiful green parklands developed back in the 1950s as part of the Narrows Bridge interchange.
This unique sanctuary is home to an abundance of birdlife and is a frequently utilised space for city workers, families and visitors of the nearby hospital.
The centrepiece lake, managed by WA’s peak infrastructure body, Main Roads, had been exhibiting signs of being over-enriched with naturally occurring nutrients. Phoslock was chosen for its patented phosphate-binding technology as an environmentally friendly and effective solution to reducing the excess build-up of phosphorus in the lake.

The scope of this project was to apply Phoslock across the entire lake making the lake healthier while maintaining the sensitive natural environment.

The project was completed successfully and the sensitive site was left in pristine condition.

Working through the challenges of an urban environment, this dredging and desludging in this project (Roslea Estate) was to remedy an odour issue that resulted from excess sludge in the lake (sludge which had built up over time from naturally occurring processes). The eradication of the odour issue should provide immediate relief to neighbouring properties as well as safeguarding future property values, by improving the health of the lake that is tied so closely to the community.

With stylish properties surrounding the lake, access to the lake was limited but our team were able to easily deploy our compact Microdredge and discretely set up our GeoPro Desludging tubes.
As a built-up residential area, it was important that the works were neither disruptive or invasive. To achieve this goal our team engaged extensively with the residents before the commencement of works. With all groups onboard, works were quickly and efficiently completed within the projected time frame. The result was a much-improved lake with a significantly improved capacity and happier residents.

In a location approximately 200km east of Perth, Apex Envirocare was recently engaged to carry out dredging and desludging works on a Waste Water Treatment Plant pond in the heart of WA’s Wheatbelt region. The remotely located site consisted of a singular primary pond, a relatively compact laydown area with very limited freshwater available. Over the course of the project, our dredging team commenced and completed desludging works across a 3782m2 clay-lined pond, recovering over a hundred tonnes of dried sediment via our successful Sediment Removal system. This was achieved whilst satisfying several key client considerations which included the pond remaining online during all works and for the highest level of safety being adhered to. To ensure this our unmanned remote control dredge (Mud Cat 40E )was deployed to offer an additional level of safety during the works on the pond.

Recognised for our professionalism and attention to detail, Apex Envirocare was recently appointed to provide a total wastewater management solution for several of Water Corporation's regional treatment ponds. In a bid to improve the function of the treatment ponds, our sediment removal solution will provide the ponds with the relief they need to help the ponds operate at their optimal efficiency. Using a combination of dredging, polymer dosing and filtering using our GeoPro Desludging tubes, the slurry moving through our system is flocculated and rapidly filtered clear water returned making this an ideal solution for Water Corporation's requirements.

When asked about the recent appointment, Managing Director Martyn Smith, had this to say “We are grateful and proud to be working once again with such a great client who appreciates our excellent work. Projects like these, particularly during these uncertain times, help us continue working and thus support our staff and their families"

Working across a large site and large pond, the recently completed farm project was commissioned to return a working wastewater pond back to its original capacity.

This was the first time the wastewater pond had been dredged in over 15 years of continuous use and as a result, huge amounts of sediment were captured and effectively separated from the pond’s water.

Utilising Apex Envirocare's expertise in dredging, dosing and dewatering was employed. The results of which can be viewed below. The project was one of the largest undertaken in WA.

WEFTEC Conference 2019

WATER ENVIRONMENT FEDERATION’S TECHNICAL EXHIBITION AND CONFERENCE

Chicago, USA

The world’s largest water and environmental trade show, WEFTEC, was held in Chicago this year, bringing to the windy city industry experts and companies at the forefront of water solutions.

As a regular WEFTEC attendee, Apex travelled again to the US to meet with experts and expand our knowledge and learn of new ideas in the field.

5 Star Safety Award: Dampier Salt Project

The use of Aqua-Barriers has enabled our client to be awarded the annual 5 Star Safety Award. As an already approved supplier, Apex Envirocare was selected to assist in the project. The brief required the culvert to be dammed so that a remote-controlled water blaster could be used to clean out the culvert. Apex Envirocare supplied the Aqua-Barriers to make the operation quicker and safer.

Dated: 8th September 2019

Exclusive Australian Distributors

We have recently been appointed as the exclusive Australian distributors for Mudcat and IMS Dredges from the USA. IMS Dredges is one of the world's leading suppliers of one truck transportable, self-propelled dredging systems for maintaining rivers, lakes, canals and other inland waterways. IMS has supplied hundreds of dredging systems in over 60 countries around the world. Mudcat leads the industry in remote controlled, automated and ROV dredging technology and regularly supplies major engineering firms, governments and contractors worldwide for high profile dredging projects.

Apex Desludge Minnawarra Lake, Armadale

One of our most recent projects is the desludging of Minnawarra Lake, in Armadale. Apex Envirocare won this open tender which forms part of major upgrades being undertaken by City of Armadale. The goal was to remove the built up sediment in order to improve the water quality in the lake as well as to create more volume. Environmental monitoring was conducted during the project to ensure water quality was not compromised. Large GeoPro Desludging Tubes were filled with the sediment that was removed from the lake, which not only contained the drying sludge but also removed any odours that may have been present.