THE CHALLENGE
Australia has long been a challenging country for water. From 2001 until 2009 we lived with the Millennium Drought - a period of critically low rainfall. South Australia was particularly affected, with the River Murray undergoing drastic increases in salinity and changes in soil chemistry.
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Among our clients from the region were grape growers operating near Lake Alexandria, south of Adelaide, a system fed from the Murray. By 2009, water levels had reached their lowest point in over a thousand years, exposing thousands of hectares of acid sulfate soils.
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With lake and underground water sources in the region rapidly becoming more saline, we were contracted to provide a containerised on-site brackish water solution for vineyard irrigation.
OUR SOLUTION
Hypersaline water kills most living organisms. Our clients knew if they irrigated their vines using untreated water, productivity and yield would plummet. Irrigating agricultural crops with correctly balanced water gives a better crop, and a higher quality yield.
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A design was proposed, entailing a 40' high cube seaworthy shipping container with brackish water desalination system, including multimedia filtration, cartridge pre-filtration and membrane-based desalination technology.
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The main concern of our client was ensuring system resilience. Our clients needed to be able to self-maintain their purchased technology, and didn't want to be faced with equipment issues that couldn't be quickly resolved.
The system was built to operate 24/7/365 with very minimal operator interaction and a very low level of chemical consumption.
SPECIFICATIONS
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Nominal Capacity: 450,000L/day
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Operating Temperature: 25°C
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Expected Feed TDS: Up to 10,000ppm
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Expected Product TDS: Below 500ppm
PROJECT RESULT
A complete and thorough Factory Acceptance Testing is performed at our facility on every system we build, ahead of delivery to the client.
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Our system was delivered, installed without issue and commissioned on-site by Advanced Watertek staff in less than four hours. Zero issues were encountered following initial set up.
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Vineyard irrigation was able to continue with an uninterrupted water supply. Water quality and suitability for crops was also assured, allowing for peace of mind while operating in extreme circumstances.
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We were able to help a number of clients in the region during this unprecedented time​. We were also pleased to make the front page!
