New Zealand Wastewater Project Given to Mott MacDonald

The Rosedale wastewater treatment facility located in Auckland, New Zealand is due for significant expansion works. Watercare Services have now appointed global engineering management and development consultancy Mott MacDonald to handle the design aspect of the project.
The planned expansion of the Rosedale wastewater plant is a project of considerable scale, with a price tag of NZ$63 million (approx. £30 million) attached. It is part of a series of infrastructure development projects planned for the North Shore of Auckland. The series of planned projects is designed to deal with the significant population growth which the area is expected to experience in the coming years.
The project includes a number of elements. A new pump station is planned for construction as part of the expansion, along with a new reactor (a modified Ludzack Ettinger type) to handle the treatment of wastewater. A new primary sedimentation tank and associated feed tank system are also planned to be added to the plant’s existing facilities in order to allow the effective handling of larger volumes of wastewater. Furthermore, a new pipeline is expected to be laid with a total length of nearly two miles (3km).
Beyond the plant’s infrastructure and equipment, two new buildings are planned for construction. The project is expected to include the development of a new administration complex to house a greater volume of business operations in the expanded plant, and a new visitor centre is also planned.
Watercare Services is government-owned, and is effectively the local water authority. It owns the water and wastewater infrastructure of Auckland, and is responsible for the operation, maintenance and development of this infrastructure.
The acquisition of this project is very much in line with Mott MacDonald’s recent goals for their operations in this part of the world. The global consultancy is actively making an effort to expand the scope of its operations and service range in the Australasia region. To this end, in April of this year they required water technology and consulting specialists AWT, who are based in both New Zealand and Australia. Their acquisition of AWT will no doubt be a key asset when it comes to handling the Rosedale wastewater expansion project, and perhaps played a role in Watercare Services’ decision to appoint the consultancy for the project in the first place.
Steve Couper, water practice leader for Mott MacDonald’s Australasian operations, said that “Mott MacDonald has provided professional and monitoring services to Watercare on many of its water and wastewater treatment plants and pipelines.” He went on to say that the consultancy is “also part of the team looking at option development and concept design for a major combined interceptor from Auckland’s outer western catchment direct to the Rosedale plant, known as the Northern Interceptor project.”
The expansion of the Rosedale plant is due for completion during the year 2015.
Matthew Scott