Every day we work behind the scenes to support some of Australia’s largest water utilities. From construction of new infrastructure, to sewer and water pipeline renewal, asset management, operations and maintenance, emergency repairs, and environmental monitoring – our goal is to help ensure water is delivered and managed safely for the communities we serve.
Michael Turner
Michael Turner, General Manager – Infrastructure Maintenance is responsible for Ventia’s Water business.
With more than 30 years’ experience in the utilities sector, Michael believes that the water industry in particular is fast evolving.
“Australia is facing unprecedented challenges when it comes to planningand managing water resources,” he says.
“Balancing the needs of a growing population and protection of the environment is put alongside the needs of additional infrastructure to serve increasing urbanisation.”
Michael adds that Ventia has a responsibility to support our clients as they tackle these issues. “We partner with them to optimise their assets and generate efficiencies and improvements that deliver cost competitiveness and meet customer service expectations.
“The role that Ventia is playing is critical as we support our clients to deliver water and sewer services and maintain their assets in a way that minimises harm and risk to local communities whilst keeping our people safe.
“Our teams of civil, sewer, mechanical and electrical maintenance workers, hydrographers and environmental monitoring field technicians work around the clock delivering water and wastewater services.
“Often the maintenance work we undertake needs to be completed after hours to minimise community disruption. For reactive and emergency work, we’re faced with working in and around live traffic across busy streets. And our water monitoring team are often in remote areas and working solo.”
Our first aim is always the safety and health of our teams, and we work hard to ensure our CRPs are always front of mind. Using tool box meetings, pre-starts, planning and following processes and procedures, our teams are empowered to assess each job to eliminate risks before undertaking the work.
Adds Michael, “Being safe means our crews stop and take the time to put the required controls in place. Our priority is to ensure that everyone – our employees, clients’ employees and contractors go home safely at the end of the day, above all else.”
SAFETY AND TECHNOLOGY
One initiative used by our water teams is the use of drones. Says Gary Dring, Ventia’s chief drone pilot: “The use of drone technology is steadily becoming part of our normal work to undertake asset management activities for our water clients.”
“The safety benefits are clear – drones can reduce many of the risks associated with field inspections and operations, and logistically can provide significant advantages over traditional inspection methods.”
Ventia currently uses drones for close visual inspection of water assets, flood ways and water treatment plants.
Late last year the Water Monitoring team conducted trials with a Melbourne water authority, using drones to collect water samples, eliminating the need for people to enter water or use water craft to do so.
Main image above: Kelly Johnson from our Water team.
