Gold Coast Desalination

The Gold Coast Desalination Alliance was a joint venture for The Gold Coast City Council and South East Queensland Region involving John Holland Pty. Ltd. and Veolia Water Australia Pty. Ltd.

Project Details

The overall scope of the project is to design, build, operate and maintain a 125 mega liter per day sea water desalination water treatment plant at Tugun on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.

Part of that project involves constructing two 3.44 metre diameter tunnels one 2.2km the other 2km out to sea for the delivery of sea water to the plant and the waste water back to the sea. Two, 150 tonne, slurry type (AVN) TBM, operating simultaneously, have excavated approximately 52000cubic meters of high quality rock at depths up to 70m below the surface of the ocean.

Outcomes

The tunnels were completed in April 2008 and the total cost of the overall project was in excess of $1 billion.