Romsey recycled water plant upgrade
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We're upgrading the Romsey Recycled Water Plant so we can continue safely treating wastewater and grow with the Romsey and Lancefield communities.
Tell us what you think
Greater Western Water plans to start construction on this project in 2027. Before we break ground, we’d love to hear what you think about the upgrades and recycled water more generally. Take our 5-minute survey and we’ll keep what matters to you in mind as we finalise our plans. Survey closes 11:59pm Sunday 23 March.
Project Overview
The Romsey RWP upgrade will increase the plant’s treatment capacity and provide more storage to better manage recycled water levels across the year, helping us meet the needs of the growing Lancefield and Romsey communities.
Construction is expected to begin in 2027.
Works in planning
The RWP upgrade includes:
- Three new treatment lagoons that will provide an additional 292ML of storage volume (more than 116 Olympic-sized swimming pools)
- A new solid waste screening system and odour filter with built-in redundancy, reducing the risk of spills and unpleasant smells
- Upgrading the existing lagoons to provide additional storage for recycled water
- New infrastructure that will allow more recycled water to be safely supplied to irrigation sites near the plant
- The construction of a biosolids drying facility to help when biosolid build-up needs to be pumped out of the lagoons
- Future-proofing the incoming power supply, replacing electrical switchboards and constructing a new emergency generator to improve plant reliability
Changes that will be made to the RWP include new lagoons, repurposed water storages, inlet works and pumping station. Sewerage treatment lagoons will also receive upgrades.
Why the project is needed
- The RWP needs more storage space to reduce the risk of lagoons overflowing during heavy rain.
- Romsey and Lancefield's population is growing, so we're increasing how much wastewater we can treat to meet the community's needs.
- We're increasing the RWP's ability to filter large objects like tissues and grit to prevent pump blockages.
Benefits for the region
- Increased ability for the plant to contain recycled water during high rainfall events, making emergency releases less likely.
- Modernisation of plant technology and equipment, improving reliability.
- Improved odour capture, extraction and treatment to maintain community comfort as sewage volume from the area increases.
Local impacts
Most works will take place within the existing Romsey RWP boundary. During construction, local residents may notice:
- occasional truck movements
- increased noise or dust near the site
- temporary odour during some of our works. This will be regularly monitored.
Environmental care, community and cultural heritage
We’re committed to protecting the environment, cultural heritage and local communities throughout the Romsey RWP upgrades by:
- consulting local community, council, Traditional Owners, and environmental groups to ensure a broad understanding of stakeholder and community needs
- obtaining all necessary environmental approvals before construction begins
- meeting all Cultural Heritage requirements
- partnering with local community and stakeholders on positive environmental outcomes (like nesting boxes and native planting).
Project updates
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Additional storage for the Romsey Recycled Water Plant
Greater Western Water engaged with the Romsey community between June and July 2023 to hear their feedback on the upgrade to the Romsey Recycled Water Plant (Romsey RWP).
Based on what we heard, our project team identified an opportunity to improve the upgrade by including an additional winter storage lagoon as part of the construction phase of the project. This new lagoon will provide extra capacity to hold treated water for reuse by local businesses and farms, helping us better meet the needs of the region’s growing population.
Since July 2024, the project team has been working on an improved design that includes this additional winter storage. We’re looking forward to sharing the updated plans with the community and hearing your feedback around June–September 2025.
As part of the initial consultation process community previously told us that protecting the native flora and fauna around the project site is important to them, so we're planning to install nesting boxes for local wildlife before the upgrade works start.
Thank you for continuing to help us shape the future of water services in Romsey.
Water Plant project
Greater Western Water engaged with the Romsey community between 16 June to 31 July 2023 to hear its feedback on the upgrade to the Romsey Recycled Water Plant (Romsey RWP).
The report from this engagement will support our application to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) for a Development Licence at the plant.
Our project team has since identified an opportunity to deliver an additional winter storage at the plant as part of the construction phase of the project. This additional work would increase the plant’s storage space and better support the region’s growing population.
Our team is assessing the viability of achieving this better community outcome. These assessments have delayed our submission to the EPA for a Development Licence at the Romsey RWP. The project is still on track for construction to begin in November 2024.
We expect to submit the application by February 2024 and will provide a full engagement report to the community at this time.
An interim report is available at Romsey community engagement snapshot.
Water quality reports
Get the latest water quality reports from our sampling program in Deep Creek, upstream and downstream of the Romsey RWP discharge point.
