excavator dredge pump filter

Adelaide Living Beaches - McConnell Dowell

Fast Facts

Up to 150,000 m 3 of sand transfer per year 9 km of slurry delivery pipework 7 km of seawater supply pipework 5 slurry and 2 seawater pumping stations 16 sand discharge points

We designed, constructed, commissioned and now operate the Adelaide Living Beaches Sand Transfer Infrastructure project in South Australia. Through this network of pipes and pumps we're moving 150,000 cubic metres of sand each year, mantaining the health and amenity of Adelaide's inner beaches.

Sea conditions along Adelaide’s metropolitan coastline results in longshore drift of sand from south to north, stripping the southern beaches of sand when not replenished.

Our sand pumping solution, which operates along 9 km of coastline, replaces the previous trucking of sand and makes the sand dredging currently undertaken at West Beach and Glenelg more efficient.

Our system includes two sand management cells - located between Glenelg Beach and Kingston Park, and between the Torrens River outlet and West Beach Harbour. Each contains a single independent slurry pipeline and associated water pumping pipelines.

The challenges and risks of working in a sensitive coastal and urban environment required us to assess the merits of traditional construction methodologies and innovative new approaches. Conventional directional drilling was avoided and pipe-strings using open trenching were laid and trenches backfilled daily to enhance safety and minimise disruption.

We successfully completed construction in 2013 and were contracted to maintain the facility for an initial 10 years. This was extended by another five years, out to 2028.