Ventia's Environmental Services team recently achieved a major project milestone in receiving EPA approval to discharge treated water offsite as part of the Fiskville remediation works.

One of the first of its kind in Victoria, Ventia - in partnership with Haldon Industries - designed, constructed and commissioned a water treatment plant (WTP) that has Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval to continuously discharge treated water offsite. Whilst treatment of PFAS impacted water is common in the industry, approval to continuously discharge treated water to the environment is rare.

This is achieved by Ventia's engineers using an innovative WTP solution to treat PFAS impacted water combined with established filter technology and a unique effluent configuration of treatment processes. This technique has also been used in NSW to directly discharge offsite. 

This series of processes includes: oxidation, pH adjustment, flocculation, solids separation, media filtration, ion exchange and adsorption through anion exchange resin and granular activated carbon. The team also used dual-media and multi-stage adsorption and ion adsorption as part of the solution.

Approval for continuous discharge from the Victoria EPA comes with strict sampling frequency and criteria. This includes conformance to control measures proposed by Ventia which monitors the progress of PFAS compounds through the system. These controls ensure compliant discharge of treated water.