Page 4559 - Week 12 - Thursday, 26 October 2017

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(3) How often are they supposed to be undertaken.

(4) When was the last one undertaken prior to the most recent audit.

(5) Whose responsibility is it to undertake audits of ACT water storages.

(6) Who undertook the most recent audit.

(7) What prompted them to do it.

(8) Why has this failure to meet safety standards not been identified before.

(9) What remediation work, if any, is required to be done.

(10) Why has a safety audit of the lower Molonglo water quality control centre not been undertaken since it was built 22 years ago.

(11) What is examined in a safety code assessment.

Mr Ramsay: The answer to the member’s question is as follows:

(1) The Utilities Technical Regulator’s Combined Annual Report for 2013/14 and 2014/15 makes this finding. This report was published on the Access Canberra web site in early 2016. Utilities Technical Regulation staff (UTR) raised concerns with Icon Water in relation to non-compliance during the first half of 2015.

(2) The ACT Dam Safety Code 2014 requires that Scheduled Dams comply with Australian Committee on Large Dams (ANCOLD) Guidelines and also NSW Dam Safety Committee Technical Guidance Sheets (NSWDSC). These guidelines require implementation of a comprehensive surveillance regime in order to demonstrate dam safety. The required frequency of inspections varies depending on the Consequence (or Hazard) Category of the Dam as noted in Table 1 below.

Icon Water conducts routine inspections for its five Scheduled Dams as required by Table 1 below. However Safety Reviews along with the associated Independent Peer Reviewer Reports have never been conducted for the four dams. This can in part be attributed to the significant changes in approach to risk assessment over the last 15 years. It is therefore more important to focus on how Icon Water is working towards compliance with current regulations. In this respect Icon Water has confirmed that it is implementing a program so that its five ‘Scheduled’ dams fully comply with the ACT Dam Safety Code 2014 by December 2018.

(3) The table below outlines the frequency required for a range of surveillance activities for Extreme, High and Low Consequence (or Hazard) Category Dams.

Table 1: Frequency of required dam surveillance

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