Seawater desalination: an environmental regulator’s perspective

Abstract

abstract The Port Stanvac seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant will be capable of producing 300,000 m3 of potable water per day when fully complete. This is the first large-scale desalination project in South Australia. A second desalination plant has recently received development approval for the Upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia. The Port Stanvac plant was initiated by the South Australian Government in response to a wide spread and prolonged drought in Australia. The plant was planned and built to drought proof Adelaide, a city of over one million people. The timescale for the plant from the first proposal to site selection, design and build was compressed due to the urgency of the situation. There were significant environmental concerns in the construction and operation of a desalination plant in the location chosen. These included protection of cliffs and high-value intertidal reefs during construction and energy use and the protection of the marine environment during the operating life of the plant. The environment protection authority was charged with regulating the environmental effects of the construction and ongoing operation of the desalination plant. This was the first such plant ever constructed in South Australia, so there were a lot of new concepts to understand to ensure the highest level of protection could be obtained. A lot of effort was made to ensure that the plant could operate in an environmentally sustainable manner in a sensitive location. Ensuring that this could be demonstrated to the public was an important factor in the way the plant was regulated. The plant is now operational and the monitoring system is in place. As the plant ramps up from producing 30,000 m3 of potable water to 300,000 m3 per day, the ongoing challenges of monitoring the discharge has been complex.