Katanning's big dry summer

Parks and ovals in Katanning will continue to look a little dry over the summer due to upgrades of pipelines still not complete.

Work to resolve the water shortage to areas including the All Ages Playground, Lions Park and Quartermaine Oval was meant to commence over the winter period.

Shire of Katanning engineering works chief Stephen Gash said the issue would only be temporary.

“It is difficult to schedule required maintenance on the oval between community and user groups using the facilities, plus matching contractor availability along with a consistent water supply,” he said.

“At the moment the water supply is an interim event until we get the permanent connection to the new water treatment plant.

“We will be contacting landowners who will be impacted by the pipeline over the next week.”

On December 9 new pipework is set to be placed with details to be provided over the coming weeks.

Derek Stock of the Miniature Railway Club voiced his concern over the appearance of the all ages playground.

“The Shire seems to be good at building projects, but not as good at maintaining them,” he said.

Changes made last year to the Department of Health water guidelines meant the reuse of effluent water on parks and ovals did not meet the new health guidelines.

To temporarily address the problem, tanks were established at the Katanning Leisure Centre to store water in November last year.

Each oval empties three-quarters of a tank, about 200,000 litres, each watering cycle.

However, the water needed to be used within 24 hours to ensure it met the water safety standards.

Furthermore, current pipework and valves used to supply water in Katanning could not keep up with the new changes to the system.

Deputy chief executive Andrew Holden said the issue would be resolved when pipes would be layed along the sides of the trenches being designed under the saleyard and Piesse Lake-Dam project.

“We were trying to run the same pipework and that seems to have caused the problem,” he said.

“We are still reliant on the old pipe to get water to the west side of town.

“We will get a resolution over summer and next winter, and hopefully we would have a new system that is more reliable.”

Katanning Wanderers Football Club president Dom Laurino was optimistic the issue would be resolved by the 2014 Upper Great Southern football league season.

“I think the Shire are doing what they can … we all knew that this year in particular would be a lean year on the oval,” he said.