We’ve got great news from our Incident Management Team – the Shepparton Wastewater Management Facility has returned to normal winter operating levels, and odour is no longer being released from the aerated lagoons.

With that, its been recommended to close out the IMT this week and we’ll be working on some wider communications materials to inform the community about our progress and success in returning the plant to normal.

We’re seeing a continuing downward trend in the levels of organic load leaving the High Rate Anerobic Lagoon, which is the primary treatment lagoon at the facility. It’s returning to levels we normally see in winter, close to 100mg/L, which we’re really happy with, and shows the lagoon’s treatment performance has stabilised and is working well. We’re also seeing temperatures begin to increase in the lagoon, and continuing warmer weather will create more optimal treatment conditions.

You can see the trends in the 14-day average graph below. Under optimal treatment processes, the gap between the orange and blue lines should be as large as possible.

We’ve also seen more key areas in our key performance indicators turn green over the past two weeks. There are still a few yellow ones, but we’re confident they’re very close to turning green in the near future as well.

These indicators show key data we’re looking at during wastewater sampling in the main treatment lagoons, including pH levels, alkalinity levels, VFAs (volatile fatty acids), the VFA to alkalinity ratio, as well as dissolved oxygen and organic loading – all are important in ensuring the wastewater treatment process works as best it can.