Processing plants necessary wastewater upgrade
Apex Water recently completed the upgrade of the wastewater treatment plant that serves the Open Country Dairy and South Pacific Meats processing plants at Awarua, near Invercargill.
With both sites undergoing expansion, an upgrade was necessary to ensure ongoing compliance with the Invercargill City Council discharge consent at increased flows. The upgrade consisted of the installation of continuous feed monitoring equipment to automatically send incoming wastewater to either the anaerobic pond or aerobic pond based on loading, and the installation of three new lamella clarifiers to increase final treatment capacity prior to discharge.
Arrival of two of the three clarifiers was severely delayed due to significant disruption to international shipping caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Apex Water engineers took a major role in implementing contingency measures and assisting site to operate the plant in accordance with consent conditions before final equipment was received and installed.
