Kiama Municipal Council is leading the way in sustainable development in New South Wales. Council was a finalist in the Environment and Heritage category at the recent Engineering Excellence Awards for its project, Leading by Example – Best Practice Sustainable Development and Water Management.
Kiama is currently developing Elambra Estate, a 213 lot residential subdivision. This project, along with Council’s Black Beach Catchment Caretakers Project, uses integrated innovative and comprehensive stormwater treatment technologies, reuse schemes and water sensitive strategies to achieve high levels of sustainability.
By requiring compulsory rain tanks to be used for toilet flushing, laundry and outdoor uses, the Elambra Estate will save up to 37 million litres of precious drinking water from Sydney’s water supply each year. A sand filter is also being used to improve the quality of stormwater run off from Kiama’s town centre. The sand filter is only the second project in Australia to incorporate HydroCon permeable concrete pipes – a highly innovative stormwater management system that removes typical urban stormwater pollutants such as metals, phosphorous and hydrocarbons.
Monitoring and evaluation at Black Beach by Sydney’s University of Technology has indicated extensive reductions in pollutant loads. The high quality of the treated stormwater will now allow it to be used for irrigation of a local park and the Black Beach Reserve area.
“Council has clearly demonstrated leadership on environmental sustainability but, importantly, we are setting policy in place that requires developers adopt similar appropriate measures to achieve sustainable development on the ground,” said Kiama Mayor, Councillor Sandra McCarthy. “There’s been enough talk about it, we believe it’s now time for action.”
For further information contact Colin Jones, Kiama’s Design and Development Manager, on (02) 4232 0463.
