Goldfields Water Supply Scheme

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, also known by names such as the Goldfields Pipeline, Goldfields and Agricultural Water Supply Scheme (GAWS), and originally known as the Coolgardie Goldfields Water Supply Scheme, is perhaps the world's longest water main. It connects Mundaring Weir, near Perth, Western Australia with the Mount Charlotte Reservoir, at Kalgoorlie, 530 km (330 miles) away. The pipeline indirectly serves towns further afield.

Contents 1 The project 2 Origins of the scheme 3 Route Taken 4 Mundaring Weir Branch Railway 5 Critics and construction 6 Completion 7 Dam 8 Pipeline 8.1 Pipeline Hurdles 8.2 Pipeline Leaking 9 Pumping stations 9.1 Original pumping stations 9.2 Current pumping stations 10 Extensions 11 Centenary 12 Climate change 13 See also 14 References 14.1 Primary sources 14.2 Secondary sources 14.3 Pamphlets 14.4 Further reading 15 External links

[edit] The project

The pipeline was commissioned in 1896 and was completed in 1903. It was established to deliver water to communities that had rapidly grown in Western Australia's "Eastern Goldfields", such as Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie.

During the early 1890s, thousands of settlers had swarmed into the barren and dry desert centre of Western Australia in search of gold, but existing infrastructure for the supply of water was non-existent and an urgent need arose. The scheme enabled the benefits of the gold discovery to be realised and brought immense wealth into the previously struggling economy. Abundant water became available at a cost of three shillings and sixpence per thousand gallons, compared to water which had been carted by rail to Coolgardie previously at the rate of over £3 per thousand gallons. The position was even worse at Kalgoorlie.

The pipeline continues to operate today, supplying water to over 100,000 people in over 33,000 households as well as mines, farms and other enterprises.

[edit] Origins of the scheme

Throughout the 1890s, water issues in Coolgardie, along the railway route, and in the Kalgoorlie - Boulder region were causing concern to the population.

On 16 July 1896, the Premier of Western Australia, Sir John Forrest introduced to Western Australian Parliament a bill to authorise the raising of a loan of £2.5 million to construct the scheme: the pipeline would cart five million gallons (23,000 m³) of water per day to the Goldfields from a dam on the Helena River near Mundaring Weir in Perth.

The scheme consisted of three key elements — the Mundaring Weir, which was fed with water from the Helena River in the Darling Scarp; a 760 mm (30 inch) diameter steel pipe which ran from the dam to Kalgoorlie 530 km (330 miles) away; and a series of eight pumping stations and two small holding dams to control pressures and to lift the water over the Darling Scarp ridge.

The distance was compounded by the height the water had to be lifted. To rise the almost 400 metres in altitude, issues with friction meant that the 'head' of 800 metres had to be achieved. O'Connor had eight pumping stations which pumped the water to the next of the receiving tanks in his plans.

[edit] Route Taken

The choice of route for the Eastern Railway through Northam, rather than York is indicative of political patronage and avoidance of some early routes to the goldfields. However there is evidence that the explorer of the 1860s Charles Cooke Hunt had wells and tracks were utilised in the 1890s and subsequently effected the route of telegraph, railway and the water scheme. The wells were made in conjunction with the local knowledge of aboriginals, and also utilised land at the edge of granite outcrops.

[edit] Mundaring Weir Branch Railway

The Public Works Department originally constructed and ran the railway from the Mundaring railway station for the purpose of delivering materials to the construction site. The Western Australian Government Railways took over the railway operation. It ceased operation in 1952, and the connecting railway line at Mundaring closed in 1954.

Main article: - Mundaring Weir Branch Railway

[edit] Critics and construction

The scheme was devised by C. Y. O'Connor who oversaw its design and most of the construction project. Although supported by Premier Forrest, O'Connor had to deal with widespread criticism and derision from members of the Western Australian Parliament as well as the local press based on a belief that scope of the engineering task was too great and that it would never work. There was also a concern that the gold discoveries would soon dry up and the state would be left with a significant debt to repay but little or no commerce to support it.

Sunday Times editor Frederick Vosper - who was also a politician, ran a personal attack on O'Connor's integrity and ability through the paper. Timing was critical, Forrest as a supporter had moved into Federal politics, and the new Premier George Leake had long been an opponent of the scheme.

[edit] Completion

O'Connor committed suicide in March 1902 less than 12 months before the final commissioning of the pipeline. Lady Forrest officially started the pumping machinery at Pumping Station number one on the 22 January, and on 24 January 1903 water flowed into the Mt Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie. O'Connors' engineer-in-chief, C. S. R. Palmer took over the project after his death, seeing it through to its successful completion.

The government conducted an inquiry into the scheme and found no basis for the press accusations of corruption or misdemeanours on the part of O'Connor.

[edit] Dam

Main article: Mundaring Weir

Construction of the dam started in 1898. When completed in 1902 it was claimed to be the highest overflow dam in the world.

Shortly after World War II, the height of the dam wall was increased by 9.7 meters (32 feet).

[edit] Pipeline

The pipes were manufactured locally from flat steel sheets imported from Germany and the United States. Mephan Ferguson was awarded the first manufacturing contract and built a fabrication plant at Falkirk (now known as the Perth suburb of Maylands) to produce half of the 60,000 pipes required. Hoskins Engineering established a factory near Midland Junction (now known simply as Midland) to produce the other half.

When built, the pipeline was the longest fresh-water pipeline in the world.^[1]

The pipeline ran alongside the route of the earlier route of the Eastern Railway and the Eastern Goldfields Railway's for parts of its route, so that the railway service and the pipeline had an interdependence through the sparsely populated wilderness.

The scheme required significant infrastructure in power generation to support the pumping stations. Communities oriented to its management grew up along the route. However, with improved power supplies and modern machinery and automation, the scheme now has more unattended pumping stations operated by fewer personnel.

[edit] Pipeline Hurdles

• The sudden Darling Range height rise between Mundaring and Northam required the location of Pumping Station number two to be close to number one,
• The Avon River in Northam required the construction of the Poole Street Bridge after failure of river bed pipes in 1917

[edit] Pipeline Leaking

Over 800 Olympic swimming pools, or 1.7 million cubic metres of water (about a quarter of the total volume being pumped from Mundaring weir) was leaking from the pipeline in the early 1930s.

[edit] Pumping stations

With most of the stations being steam driven, ready supply of timber was needed to fire the boilers, and as a consequence the closeness to the Eastern Railway was critical. O'Connor's concern with the viability of the pumping stations saw three identical pumping sets, with the third being in reserve while the first two functioned, in the first four stations. Stations five to eight had only one working and one reserve pumping set, due to the low height rise between them.

James Simpson and Co supplied 3,500 tons of equipment in 5,000 separate boxes for the construction of the pumping sets.

[edit] Original pumping stations

• Number One - below Mundaring Weir (now a National Trust administered museum)
• Number Two - above Mundaring Weir (demolished in 1960s)
• Number Three - Cunderdin (now Cunderdin Museum)
• Number Four - Merredin (location of three generations of pump station)
• Number Five - Yerbillon
• Number Six - Ghouli
• Number Seven - Gilgai
• Number Eight - Dedari

[edit] Current pumping stations

[edit] Extensions

Branch mains - or extensions were started as early as 1907. Water from the pipeline was utilised for numbers of country towns adjacent to its route, and also into the Great Southern region. The Public Works Department started this project in the 1950s following the raising of the weir wall in the early 1950s and it completed this work in 1961.

[edit] Centenary

The scheme was 'interpreted' by the National Trust of Australia (WA) in its Golden Pipeline Project which created guide books, web sites, and tourist trails along the scheme pipeline and tracing the older Power Station locations and communities that serviced the scheme. The Trust achieved the responsibility in an agreement with the Water Corporation in 1998. Most of the material was developed between 2001 and 2003.

[edit] Climate change

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, a lack of rainfall has seen the water levels low for consecutive years. The dam below the Mundaring Weir, Lower Helena Pumpback Dam, has been utilised in the pumping of water back up into the weir.

[edit] See also

• Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
• Pipeline transport
• Water supply network
• C.Y. O'Connor

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Le Page, J. S. H. (1986) Building a state : the story of the Public Works Department of Western Australia 1829-1985 Leederville,W.A: Water Authority of Western Australia. ISBN 0724468625

[edit] External links

• The Golden Pipeline Project
• The WA National Trust Website
• Serle, Percival (1949). “O'Connor, Charles”, Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.