Year in review
Year in review
Driving customer outcomes
Driving customer outcomes
We provide our customers with safe, smart, reliable and affordable water services.
To achieve this, we maintain trust, ensure water quality and asset reliability, and provide
continuity of service by preventing or minimising temporary
service interruptions. We deploy connected and intelligent assets to make smart decisions and operate efficiently so our services remain affordable.
Sustaining and expanding our networks
We continue to focus on improving our water and wastewater infrastructure assets and invest in major infrastructure projects, with a total $442.9 million investment
in infrastructure in 2021-22.
As part of the total infrastructure investment and our ongoing work to maintain and sustain our pipe networks, we invested $90.1 million in our water pipe network and infrastructure, and $20.1 million in our wastewater pipe network and infrastructure.
Through our water main management program, in 2021-22 we installed approximately 89.6 kilometres of new water mains with 28.5 kilometres laid in metropolitan Adelaide and 61.1 kilometres in country areas of the state. Our four-year, $155 million water main management program led to the install of new water mains throughout the state, including:
- 1,800 meters in Stirling North
- 1,800 meters in Redbanks
- 1,193 meters in Wokurna
- 1,000 meters in Woodchester
- 800 meters in Woodside
- 630 meters in Pooraka
- 600 meters in Port Pirie West
- 580 meters in Upper Hermitage
- 570 meters in Queenstown
- 450 meters in Ridgehaven.
Planning and procurement for a major renewal of up to 14 kilometres of our Morgan to Whyalla Pipeline began in April 2022 as part of our $62 million investment securing reliable water services for 100,000 regional customers into the future.
In February 2022, the City of Tea Tree Gully endorsed a plan to transition around 4,700 properties from the council-run community wastewater management scheme to our sewer network by 2028.
Lifting the lid for improved digestion
One of the largest crane lifts in our history, the successful lift of a 115 tonne digester roof, was the culmination of 12 months of planning and part of a $4.7 million upgrade of one of anaerobic digesters at Bolivar Wastewater Treatment Plant. The upgrade, expected to be completed in December 2022, will improve the digester’s performance by enhancing the insulation of the cover ensuring an optimal internal environment for the digestion process.
Keeping prices low and stable
Water use pricing for residential and business customers and minimum sewerage access charges for all customers increased by 1.1 per cent in 2021-22, aligned with the Consumer Price Index.
Statewide pricing means the majority of our customers pay the same price per kilolitre of water, no matter where they live or the actual cost of supplying that location. Sewerage prices also increased by 1.1 per cent on average in 2021-22, with actual prices based on the overall capital value of customer properties. This process ensures we do not achieve a windfall revenue gain through increasing property values, and that prices are as consistent as possible across the state.
UV lighting up water treatment at Happy Valley
Since December 2021, the southern hemisphere’s largest drinking water ultraviolet (UV) disinfection system has been supplying safe, clean drinking water for nearly half a million South Australians.
Secondary disinfection with UV light provides an additional layer of water quality protection against potentially harmful pathogens.
As part of a $26 million upgrade, our Happy Valley Water Treatment Plant was retrofitted with four reactors with a combined 624 UV lamps, able to treat up to 600 megalitres of water each day instantaneously.
Chloramination coup for Fleurieu customers
From December 2021, water quality for 25,000 homes and businesses across the Fleurieu Peninsula was improved with chloramination.
The disinfection process for water stored in the Myponga Reservoir and supplied to large parts of the region – from Victor Harbor and Encounter Bay through to Middleton, Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island, as well as Willunga, Sellicks Beach and parts of Aldinga Beach – now provides a better quality supply of tap water. This improvement reduces disinfection by-product levels, while ensuring bacteria and other naturally occurring harmful pathogens are destroyed within the drinking water systems.
Adelaide Service Delivery partnerships
On 1 July 2021, new contracts came into effect with Lendlease Services, now part of ServiceStream, for the delivery of field services in metropolitan Adelaide, and with SUEZ for the operation of five water treatment plants and four wastewater treatment plants.
These Adelaide Service Delivery partnerships aim to ensure stability, performance and value for money and are structured with initial four- and five-year terms respectively and extensions able to be exercised subject to the consistent achievement of customer service targets. In 2021-22, our Production and Treatment Alliance with SUEZ has:
- delivered a record volume of biosolids to our local farmers
- improved processes through chemical optimisation across all treatment plants
- introduced real-time software solutions dedicated to the management of the performance of drinking water networks
- and to the preservation of water resources
- supported our capital
- works program and delivery of a significant amount of minor works.
The Anstey Hill Water Treatment Plant’s conventional treatment of water from the River Murray or Millbrook Reservoir was also named the best in the state. Hosted by the Water Industry Operators Association of Australia in November 2021, the Ixom 2021 Best Tasting Tap Water in Australia Awards named the tap water supplied to 642,000 customers in the Adelaide region the most aesthetically pleasing in South Australia.
Our Field Operations Metro partnership with ServiceStream has also seen many successes in 2021-22, including:
- completing 105,000 workorders for customers with an average satisfaction score of 93 per cent
- more than 500 customer compliments the rapid mobilisation of three depots in six weeks in response to COVID-19, which enabled the safety of crews while continuing to provide a reliable service for customers.
Maintaining our sewers
We invested $1.67 million to proactively clean and inspect approximately 126 kilometres of wastewater gravity mains using closed-circuit television investigations in environmental hotspot areas.
Our tree root barrier installation program continued in 2021-22 at 12 new locations across metropolitan Adelaide to cost-effectively prevent root intrusions that cause chokes and overflows with minimal customer disruption.
Modernising customer service
At 30 June 2022, there were 272,201 properties receiving eBills, up from 235,842 the previous year and 183,878 properties were registered with mySAWater, our online account management service.
Customer-centric enhancements were made in 2021-22 to mySAWater, where customers can view bills, check water use and manage payments, with new functions introduced to increase automated services, including:
- one-time code logon capability
- viewing and exporting historic account summaries
- personalised alerts and notifications
- general and billing enquiries and refund requests
- requests for payment assistance
- allowances for high water use and leakage.
Self-service functionality, two-way communications and accessibility on our website also enhanced the customer experience in 2021-22, including:
- expanded web chat functionality for inbound customer communications
- new styling of online forms to meet best practice and improve accessibility
- new web forms, including requests for past bills and refunds
- improvements to our homepage and search functionality.
The quality of our customer data underpins our critical customer service functions such as billing, debt recovery and customer service. Use of artificial intelligence to automatically detect, prevent and merge duplicate customer records began in 2021-22. Hundreds of thousands of records were analysed and a 40 per cent reduction of duplicate records was achieved in the first month of implementation, enabling us to be more confident in the customer data we store, and knowledgeable to improve the service provided to our customers.
Centenary celebration
Lock One at Blanchetown marked 100 years of service in April 2022. The lock, situated approximately 270 kilometres from the Murray Mouth, officially completed its first lockage for river traffic on 6 April 1922, which was also the first for the entire lock system.
Award winning customer service
The Our Customers Program was recognised with the Customer Experience Award at the Australian Water Association Awards in May 2022. The Program engages our people’s hearts and minds, while supporting leaders to build a culture with our people and our customers at its heart. In 2021-22 our customer satisfaction result, measuring customer
satisfaction with recent experience, was 94 per cent.
We were quick to respond to our customers, with:
- 87 per cent of incoming calls about faults answered within the target of 50 seconds
- 97 per cent of connection applications responded to within the target of 20 business days
- 97 per cent of new water connections actioned within the target of 25 business days for standard and 35 business days for non-standard
- 98 per cent of new sewerage connections actioned within the target of 30 business days for standard and 50 business days for non-standard.
Translation at your service
In 2021-22, we launched our Language Aide Program. More than 40 bi-lingual volunteer employees are now providing a face-to-face translation service to help South Australian customers who find it difficult to communicate in English at the redeveloped front counter at SA Water House. Our in-house interpreters are on call to speak with our customers in more than 30 languages, including French, Hindi, Italian, Mandarin and Auslan. This new program complements the free, external phone interpreter service used by around 18 customers per month, with Mandarin and Vietnamese the most requested languages.
Global recognition
In May 2022, we were recognised among the world’s top water utilities, winning a distinction for Public Water Agency of the Year at the 2022 Global Water Awards in Spain.
The only Australian organisation shortlisted at the annual event, we were commended particularly for our net zero emissions efforts, work done to provide safe, clean water and education activities to Aboriginal communities around South Australia, and our industry-leading Zero Cost Energy Future initiative.
Timely response to service interruptions
Across our 27,000 km water network, there were 3,517 water main leaks and breaks in
2021-22, representing a three per cent reduction in the number of water main incidents year on year.
The Bureau of Meteorology’s National performance report 2020-21: urban water utilities, released in February 2022, shows we performed favourably among our peers, particularly with a reduction in the number of water main leaks and breaks, from 13.5 per 100 kilometres of main in 2019-20 to 13.3 in 2020-21, which is below the national average of 18.9. In 2021-22, our crews attended 99 per cent of high priority water network breaks and leaks within target timeframes, in both metropolitan and regional areas.
In metropolitan areas, our crews attended 99 per cent of sewer events within target
timeframes, and in regional areas they attended 100 per cent within target timeframes.
We completed 97 per cent of sewer overflow clean-ups in the metropolitan area within target timelines against a target of 98 per cent, and 98 per cent in regional areas against a target of 99 per cent. While our sewer overflow clean-up timeliness results for 2021-22 show our performance to be within 1 per cent of target in both the metropolitan and regional areas, a best endeavours assessment shows we would have met the target except for circumstances beyond our control.
Smart tech to track corrosion and avoid water main pipe breaks
In 2021-22, we commenced testing of monitoring devices installed on points along a steel water pipe in Happy Valley. These 10 test points measure and send daily data relating to the performance of the cathodic protection system, allowing us to maintain effective corrosion protection and ultimately avoid water main breaks. A full trial of the Cathodic Protection Maintenance project will be launched in 2022-23.
Water for the future
Our production and treatment activities ensure the water we provide is fit for our customers to use, and to be recycled or returned to the environment. We harvest, store, treat, distribute and reuse water to provide fit for purpose water services to our customers to stimulate economic growth and meet customer needs.
Sustainable solutions for remote communities
A new, state-of-the-art desalination plant began operations at Yalata on the state’s far west coast in September 2021. It delivered more than five million litres of water to local residents and businesses in the Aboriginal community during its first three months of operation while reducing power consumption by around 400 per cent compared with its predecessor.
A combination of more efficient pumps, economies of scale and scheduling production for times of peak solar radiance, has seen energy consumption fall from an average of 10,000 kilowatt hours per quarter to just over 2,000 kilowatt hours.
At Kaltjiti in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands, a replacement desalination plant and new solar installation was commissioned in June 2022, helping ensure reliable and sustainable drinking water for the community.
Improved water security for Kangaroo Island
A new, two-megalitre-a-day capacity seawater desalination plant and distribution network on Kangaroo Island will provide additional water security for the island, improve water quality management and expand the network. Water produced from the new plant will supplement the existing Penneshaw facility and the Middle River Reservoir, supplying the island through a connected drinking water network.
The new distribution network will have capacity to provide new connections to Baudin Beach, Island Beach, Sapphiretown and American River, with the first 14 kilometres of the new trunk main installed in 2021-22.
The new plant and distribution network will also aid firefighting capabilities, with fire plugs installed every two kilometres along the trunk main and every 400 metres along the new pipelines in the newly connected communities. These fire plugs will provide the Country Fire Service with access for firefighting purposes.
Joining forces for a sustainable supply
In February 2022, we entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of South Australia, BHP and OZ Minerals to investigate the merit of the Northern Water Supply Project. Infrastructure SA is leading the project which will consider the infrastructure investment to create a new sustainable water supply for the far north and Upper Spencer Gulf of South Australia.
Working towards a statewide water resource plan
We engaged with the Department of Environment and Water throughout 2021-22 on the development of South Australia’s Water Security Statement, the Urban Water Directions Statement and the Barossa Water Security Strategy, ensuring strategic alignment for healthy, thriving communities and sustainable economic growth for the state.
Engagement with the Goyder Institute’s Stormwater Experts Panel Project and involvement in the Stormwater Stakeholder Reference Group ensure our role in the governance, funding, policy arrangements and technical considerations of future options for stormwater in South Australia.
Healthy communities
We support and promote the health and wellbeing of an active, thriving South Australia. This is achieved by building sustainable and liveable communities.
We share new ways of using water effectively and efficiently to create comfortable green spaces that support wellbeing. Through actions to achieve reconciliation, we support stronger Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities by helping to create economic opportunities.
Delivering our Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan
Our Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan 2020-23 is part of our commitment to reconciliation and its actions target key impact areas. In 2021-22, we:
- Supported economic opportunities
- We increased support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses through direct employment for various capital projects as well as encouraging our major contractors and partners to set supplier diversity targets and procurement policies. ServiceStream, our metropolitan field operations services provider, recorded 3.64 per cent Aboriginal employment.
- We spent more than $7.98 million (1.05 per cent of all expenditure) with Aboriginal businesses, comprising a direct spend of $1.16 million and indirect spend of $6.82 million, exceeding our target by almost $2 million.
- Aboriginal-owned project management business, Zancott Knight, delivered $600,000 of water storage tank upgrades, refurbishing our 28-metre-high concrete elevated water storage in Millicent and upgrading our elevated steel tank in Marla in the state’s far north, with the steel structure and platform floor refurbished, external pipework recoated, and the tank’s access infrastructure restored.
- Built a culturally respectful workplace
- We continued to provide cultural awareness training for our people with 72 per cent having completed the training as at 30 June 2022.
- We marked National Reconciliation Week and NAIDOC Week with events in Adelaide, Kadina, Woodside and Murray Bridge, and participated in the Reconciliation Week Breakfast and the NAIDOC Ball. We also supported the NAIDOC Week Family Day with the Quench Bench, our portable drinking water trailer used at community events.
- Delivered services to improve liveability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
- We partnered with three grassroots Aboriginal community organisations through our Reconciliation Partnerships Program, Pirku-Itya (the Kaurna word meaning ‘for community’).
- This year Pirku-Itya supported an Aboriginal cultural garden at Berri Regional Secondary College, the installation of a water play park in Point Pearce and a series of ‘Southern Deadly Fun Runs’ in metro Adelaide and Pitjantjatjara Country.
- Our Finger Point Wastewater Treatment Plant cultural burn initiative was recognised with an Australian Water Association South Australia state award for organisational excellence in November 2021. Working collaboratively with Aboriginal communities and government agencies to deliver the prescribed burn, the initiative incorporated cultural knowledge and enabled Aboriginal communities to manage land using traditional ecological knowledge. It set a benchmark for cultural inclusion in future prescribed burns.
Recreation at our reservoir reserves
In 2021-22, our 11 reservoir reserves welcomed 432,453 visitors. Since Myponga Reservoir Reserve opened in April 2019, we have recorded 658,649 visitors at all reservoir reserves, supporting the health and wellbeing of active thriving communities.
Activating reservoirs for healthy communities was acknowledged at the Parks and Leisure
South Australia 2022 Award of Excellence in May 2022 when we were awarded Community Based Initiative of the Year.
We continued the Reservoir Volunteer program, partnering directly with like-minded community members at reservoir reserves on conservation activities such as revegetation and bush care, fish stocking activities, and community events at Myponga, Happy Valley, Mount Bold, Hope Valley, Warren, South Para and Barossa Reservoir Reserves.
This year, we opened Little Para Reservoir Reserve to the public in October 2021 and Happy Valley Reservoir Reserve in December 2021.
We continued to enhance the visitor offerings at reservoir reserves already opened to the public:
- The first guided tours hosted by Reservoir Rangers were run at Hope Valley Reservoir Reserve in June 2022, providing information about the reservoir, its role in providing drinking water, and the local wildlife and plants which call the reserve home.
- More than 10 kilometres of new trail opened at Bundaleer Reservoir Reserve in November 2021, enabling access to an additional 200 hectares. Improved visitor facilities, including a new picnic shelter, table and bench seating were also installed.
- A new trail network and lookout opened to the public at Mount Bold Reservoir Reserve in December 2021.
- Barossa Reservoir Reserve’s Whispering Wall visitor area underwent a refresh in
- December 2021, including car park resurfacing and redesign, improved paths, fully accessible dam wall and whisper stations, and a new nature play area and landscaping.
- Gas barbeque facilities were installed at Hope Valley Reservoir Reserve in May 2022.
- New toilet facilities were opened at Myponga Reservoir Reserve in February 2022.
New map app to navigate reservoir reserves
Visitors to South Australia’s reservoir reserves can now access the most up-to-date and accurate information about walking trails, via the free Avenza maps app.
Comprehensive, georeferenced maps of trails at every reservoir reserve open to the public were launched in December 2021, using visitors’ smartphone GPS to navigate even when out of range of a network or internet connection.
Reservoirs Partnership Program
In April 2022, three community groups were selected to share around $20,000 in funding as part of the Reservoirs Partnership Program, helping community groups host events or projects at South Australia’s reservoir reserves open for recreational access.
A new nature based education program for home school families, a habitat improvement project for local fish and birdlife, and kayak training and tours for youth volunteers all demonstrated events and programs that champion environmental conservation, encourage recreation, and help educate communities on the importance of our natural environment and water sources.
A recipient of the 2021 funding round, Southern Barossa Alliance, hosted their ‘Reservoir Outdoor Adventure Race’ at Warren Reservoir Reserve in October 2021.
Getting appy at Happy Valley
Since January 2022, visitors at Happy Valley Reservoir Reserve have been using
their smartphones to discover hidden treasures with the free ‘Explore Water’ app.
Using the power of augmented reality to bring the environment to life, a geocaching trail guides users to interact with smart frames to play interactive games and learn about our water supply and rich natural environment in an engaging and fun way.
Community education, events, support and engagement
While participation in our education and community programs continued to be lower than usual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021-22, 1,204 students and their teachers participated in our education program The Well.
This year, we supported 10 community projects through our Community Partnerships
Program. The program offers small scale financial or in-kind support to not-for-profit community organisations to deliver events and projects across regional and metropolitan South Australia. The successful recipients deliver water-related events or programs and help us achieve our goal of being a partner organisation within communities.
Through our Water Talks website, more than 19,300 people learned about and engaged on a range of projects underway across the state including:
- Tea Tree Gully Sustainable Sewers
- Mount Bold Dam Safety Upgrade
- Eyre Peninsula’s desalination plant
- Kangaroo Island’s new seawater desalination plant
- planning for 2024-2028.
Our Quench Benches and vintage caravan, Miss Isla, got around in 2021-22, delivering 82,463 litres of safe, clean drinking water at 78 community events including:
- NAIDOC Week Family Day
- WOMAD
- Lucky Dumpling Market
- Christmas Pageant
- Tasting Australia
- Festival of Cycling.
Knowledge sharing for world-class wastewater testing
In October 2021, we began working with several interstate health agencies to undertake COVID-19 wastewater testing over the border, and to share our expertise in wastewater monitoring for coronavirus with international authorities in Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. Our experts provided technical guidance on sampling and analytical techniques and produced training material to help the countries establish surveillance programs.
Right trees in the right places
To further support urban cooling and tree canopy coverage, our 2021 Tree Planting Guide was released. The guide helps customers plant the right tree in the right place by providing
information on where trees can be planted. It outlines what species are suitable as well as provides proactive measures such as tree root barriers to protect our underground infrastructure when planting new trees.
The Healthy Pipes online tool, also launched in 2021-22, is a new wastewater network mapping tool to ensure customer plantings do not adversely impact our underground water and wastewater mains.
The tool also supports local councils with information on where they can plant trees in the public realm while still protecting our infrastructure as part of their own efforts to increase tree canopy.
Greening our communities
This year, we helped transform our land holdings and the land around our infrastructure into greener spaces to support thriving communities.
We supported the City of West Torrens and local community groups, including the Adelaide Sailing Club, as part of a project to undertake a sand dune restoration project adjacent to the Glenelg Wastewater Treatment Plant. We prepared the site by providing a water supply, irrigation and woody weed removal to improve amenity and reduce erosion. A community planting day was then held on 22 May 2022 with the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water joining around 60 volunteers in the planting of around 6,000 native plants.
Native garden demonstration sites were developed at our Naracoorte, Woodside and Port Pirie depots in 2021-22, featuring indigenous plant species to improve amenity, streetscape and biodiversity outcomes.
Major faults
Polkinghorns Rd
Arthurton
- 18/06/2020
Water Supply On
- 18/06/2020 03:05 PM - We are attending to an incident in Arthurton with no interruption to the water supply. The safety of our crews and customers comes first, and we always aim to minimise inconvenience by restoring services as quickly as we can. Reference Number WO: 07505663.
- See all major faults
Scheduled works
Spruance Rd
Elizabeth East
- 11/06/2021
Temporary Supply Interruption
- Estimated start time and water supply off: 15/06/2021 09:00 AM
Estimated restore time and water supply back on: 15/06/2021 04:00 PM
We’re improving your services and undertaking maintenance work in Elizabeth East. Sometimes our crews need to temporarily interrupt the water supply to our customers and/or manage traffic while they are working. Temporary traffic management may remain in place until reinstatement of the impacted road is complete. We always aim to minimise inconvenience by restoring services as safely and quickly as we can. - See all scheduled works
