Crucial Treatment Plant Upgrades are delivering safe drinking water for thousands of Hastings households.

Waiaroha is a key Hastings District Council Drinking Water Strategy designed to improve water quality and supply. The strategy is being implemented in multiple stages, over multiple sites.

“This is a very unique project for the Hastings District Council,” says Mark Currie, Drainways Contracting Managing Director. Drainways is the main project contractor.
“It’s a very large project. It’s one of the finishing touches that the Council has been doing for this over $90 million spend on the water upgrade since the Havelock North water crisis.”

Stage one was delivering the Frimley Park Water Treatment Plant, servicing two thirds of Hastings households. Stage Two is developing the Eastbourne plant and “water education centre”, servicing the other third of residents.

Drainways has engaged industrial and commercial specialists ICE Electrical Ltd to support in the delivery of both stages.

Frimley Park is a complex and impressive processing system. Ground bores draw water into an 8 million litre surface level storage tank onsite.

ICE Electrical senior project manager David Frank says “that’s where it all starts.”

ICE Electrical’s scope of work includes all of the electrical instrumentation – from the transformer’s mains cabling through to switchboards, to the plant motor control centre and even includes the ball pumps bringing raw water up into the plant.

“As soon as the raw water is up into the plant, it goes through some UV trains, gets sterilised through that and then comes up into a reservoir to be stored, as demand asks for it, it comes back down through the plant and is sent out to the network for the consumers to use.”

Eastbourne is due for completion later in 2023. It promises to be even more impressive, doubling as an open public greenspace and education centre.

“All I can say is that working with Dave and the guys from ICE has been an amazing privilege,” Mark says. “and it’s been great working with them. They’re a great company to work with and we’re very happy to employ and work with them on Stages 1 and 2.”