Keeping Kaikohe's Water Flowing During a Major Upgrade

Kaikohe's water treatment plant is the backbone of the town's water supply. When the time came to upgrade it, adding a significant new 1.5 million-litre storage reservoir to protect the community against future droughts, the existing treatment infrastructure still had to keep running throughout the build. 

That's where Condor came in.

The Project

Bellcon was engaged to construct a major upgrade to the Kaikohe Water Treatment Plant, including a new storage reservoir that would significantly increase the town's treated water storage capacity. The upgrade was designed to strengthen Kaikohe's resilience to drought, an increasingly important consideration for communities in Northland.

The challenge: the plant couldn't simply be taken offline while the new reservoir went in. Kaikohe's water supply needed to remain operational throughout construction, which meant the existing clarifier function had to be maintained without interruption.

The Challenge

Water treatment plants rely on clarifiers to settle suspended solids out of raw water before it moves through to the next stage of treatment. During construction of the new storage tank, Bellcon needed a solution that could replicate that clarifier function temporarily, keeping the treatment process running continuously while the permanent infrastructure was being built around it.

The solution needed to be rapidly deployable, capable of handling the plant's operational flow, and reliable enough to support an uninterrupted water supply to the community.

The Condor Solution

Condor deployed 2 x XXL Water Treatment Systems to act as temporary clarifiers for the duration of the construction phase.

The Condor XXL is built around a channel-shaped lamella clarifier system that delivers maximum settlement per square metre of unit footprint, making it well suited to exactly this kind of application. With a 40m³/hr operational flow rate and 40m² of settlement area per unit, the two XXL systems provided the treatment capacity the plant needed to keep pace with demand while Bellcon completed the new reservoir.

With both units running, Condor provided the equivalent clarifier function needed to bridge the gap between the plant's existing infrastructure and the completion of the new storage reservoir.

The Outcome

The project is currently underway, with Kaikohe's water supply being maintained throughout construction. Once complete, the new 1.5 million-litre storage reservoir will significantly increase the town's treated water storage capacity, providing a meaningful buffer against future drought events in the region.

For Bellcon, having the right temporary treatment solution in place from the start means the build can progress on programme without compromising the plant's operational obligations.

For Kaikohe, the result will be a more resilient water supply, one that's better equipped to handle whatever the Northland climate throws at it.