New Canberra wetland to help reduce ‘unavoidable pollution’ in Lake Ginninderra

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Blue-green algae has long plagued Canberra’s waterways and now a new approach is being tried to keep the bacteria at bay. A new wetland has been created in Belconnen to filter pollution caused by storm water run-off. It is hoped the Australian-first system will help keep Lake Ginninderra free of the toxic algae.

Transcript

00:00Meet Lake Ginandera's newest weapon in the war on water pollution.

00:08We're in a city. There's unpreventable pollution. These wetlands are here to knock that out.

00:149.6 square kilometres of Belconnen Oval is now a natural treatment area for stormwater runoff in the Emu Creek catchment.

00:22The $4 million project will use plants and microorganisms to filter around 30% of the sediment and plant nutrients,

00:31like phosphorus and nitrogen, which drive toxic blue-green algal blooms.

00:36Ultimately, it will help this lake avoid ending up like this one.

00:41The last bit of this wetland is like a hydroponic garden.

00:45The water flows underneath the plants. The plants take up the nutrients.

00:49They remove the dissolved nutrients.

00:52It features an Australian first trial of a sub-surface wetland, which is used overseas to treat wastewater.

00:59They're very effective, which is why they're used as your tertiary treatment and sewage treatment plants.

01:04The engineering firm responsible for this one says modelling confirmed this.

01:09Pollutants like litter are reduced by almost half, suspended soils like soil by a third,

01:15and phosphorus and nitrogen by at least 20% each.

01:19But the finished wetland has also been driven by community feedback.

01:23This started out as purely a subsurface wetland and the community said that's not what we want.

01:29We want to see some open water.

01:31There's been quite a lot of discussions with the community.

01:34Originally, plans were put up that elicited quite a bit of feedback and a lot of that's been worked through.

01:39Plans revised.

01:40The final product earning a big thumbs up.

01:43I personally asked for this bridge to go across the wetland so every morning now I can walk across with my dog.

01:49A win-win for all involved.

01:52The new job is this.

01:53The new job was put up in an abandoned hospital,

02:01And this is beyond an old hospital.

02:02It's not a big deal.

02:03It seems brought to me now.

02:06The new job was built.

02:08It's not the perfect job.

02:10The new job was built to go across the streets.

02:12The new job was built.

02:15It's the new job was built,

02:17It's just all available in the renovate house.

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