Members of the Mount Somers community are being invited to come along and see their new water membrane treatment plant when it is officially opened on 29 August.

The plant will be opened by Ashburton District Mayor Neil Brown in the morning and then it will be open to the community from 2-4pm the same day.

The $4.6 million plant has been supplying membrane-treated water to the township for two weeks and is in the final stages of commissioning.

Infrastructure and Open Spaces Group Manager Neil McCann said he hoped Mount Somers residents would come along and see the new plant in action.

“This is a huge improvement for the water supply and we’re excited to see it finished and operating.”

He said construction had gone to plan and the treatment plant would be operated by Council contractors ACL.

“It’s essentially a smaller version of the membrane treatment plant we built at Methven and ACL will oversee its operation. Water volumes and plant functions are continuously monitored remotely, though staff will be regularly onsite to make sure everything runs smoothly.”

About 150 properties are connected to the Mount Somers drinking water supply and before the new plant was built, heavy rain meant turbid water and frequent boil water notices.

The new membrane technology filters the raw water to a much higher degree than the old treatment plant, which allows it to be UV treated and disinfected to meet the high criteria set by national drinking water standards.

Mr McCann said the new plant was built about 50 metres west of the old plant on Ashburton Gorge Road.

“As well as improving the way we treat drinking water, we’ve also doubled the volume of water stored in reservoirs, with eight new tanks able to hold 240 cubic metres of potable water.”

The new treatment equipment is housed in a new building beside the reservoir tanks and new soakage fields and settling ponds.
Water is sourced from the confluence of Woolshed Creek and Stony Creek, and piped about 4km to the plant for treatment.

Mr McCann said Council also had plans to further improve the supply in the long term by investigating other intake sources for the township’s drinking water supply.