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JDAP clears the way for pipeline through Wanneroo, Woodvale, Ashby and Neerabup

Lucy JarvisJoondalup Times

PLANS for a 12.8km, $21 million pipeline through four suburbs, including Bush Forever sites and private properties, received development approval this week.

The Metropolitan North-West Joint Development Assessment Panel approved plans for the underground pipeline, which will carry treated waste water from Water Corporation’s Beenyup Advanced Water Recycling Plant in Craigie to recharge points in Wanneroo and Neerabup.

The infrastructure is for stage two of the Perth Ground Water Replenishment Scheme, which will enable 14 gigalitres of treated waste water to be recharged into the Leederville and Yarragadee aquifers each year.

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According to the November 7 panel meeting agenda, the first stage of the scheme involved recharging about 14GL of drinking water a year at Beenyup.

“The proposed pipeline… will traverse east under the Mitchell Freeway regional road reserve to Yellagonga Regional Park before continuing north along the eastern side of Lake Joondalup; it will terminate in Neerabup,” the report said. “The pipeline will traverse through the suburbs of Woodvale, Wanneroo, Ashby and Neerabup.

“The affected land is reserved public purpose (water authority), parks and recreation, other regional roads, primary region roads, and zoned urban and rural.

“A number of privately owned landholdings will also be affected.”

Although public works don’t generally require planning approval, the report said this proposal did because it would involve clearing of “regionally significant bushland in a Bush Forever area”.

It said the impact on flora and fauna would be managed through an environmental impact assessment, including fauna rescue and “environmentally sensitive drilling techniques”.

“Where there is a potential impact on the environment, the pipeline will be constructed through the use of micro tunnelling and horizontal directional drilling techniques,” it said.

An attachment to the report said within the pipeline’s 27.58ha development envelope, about 2.23ha of black cockatoo foraging habitat would be cleared and disturbed, but no more than 2.05ha of native vegetation would be. The report said the Water Corporation had consulted affected landowners and government agencies.

It said the scheme sought to reduce reliance on “climate dependent water sources such as rainfall”.

The seven-member panel approved the pipeline with eight conditions, including one for the disturbed landscape to be returned to its pre-excavation condition where practical.

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