Golden pipeline
The Golden Pipeline or officially called Goldfields Water Supply Scheme (also Goldfields Pipeline , Goldfields and Agricultural Water Supply Scheme (GAWS) and Coolgardie Goldfields Water Supply Scheme ) in Western Australia was the world's longest freshwater pipeline with a length of 540 kilometers . It connects Lake CYO'Connor near Perth with the Mount Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie-Boulder . The pipeline also provides water to locations in the wider vicinity of the pipeline over land.
The Golden Pipeline was added to the List of International Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2008 and was added to the Australian National Heritage List on June 23, 2011 .
Project planning
Before 1893 there was little reason for the government of Western Australia to plan water transports for the population and for the cattle into the sparsely populated and arid inland. That changed when gold was found at Kalgoorlie in 1893 by Arthur Bayley and William Ford in Coolgardie and Paddy Hannan . The gold discoveries started an Australian gold rush and brought immigrants to Western Australia who settled near the gold fields. The transport of water took place with the railway line completed in 1896 as far as Kalgoorlie, whereby the volume was by far not sufficient. The Public Works Department had different considerations about bringing water to the gold fields until Charles O'Connor's decision to commission hydraulic engineer Thomas Hodgson to plan the Coolgardie Water Supply Project brought about the breakthrough for the Golden Pipeline.
The pipeline was planned from 1896 and completed in 1903, ensuring the fresh water supply for the growing region.
The pipeline program took advantage of the gold discovery and brought great prosperity to the previously ailing regional economy. After the completion of the pipeline construction, fresh water could be sold for a price of three shillings and a sixpence for 1000 gallons, which corresponded to a price reduction of around 94 percent: beforehand, the water had to be brought to Kalgoorlie by train, so that the same amount Cost £ 3.
To date, the pipeline supplies more than 100,000 people in over 33,000 households as well as the mines, farms and other businesses.
Planning and route
On July 16, 1896, when Prime Minister Sir John Forrest introduced law in the Western Australian Parliament authorizing him to spend £ 2.5 million on the construction of the project, the pipeline was planned to have up to five million gallons (23,000 m³) of water per day deliver to the gold fields.
The plan consisted of three key elements: the Mundaring barrage, which feeds the water from the Helena River into a steel pipe with a diameter of 760 mm and delivers it to Kalgoorlie 530 km away, as well as eight pumping stations with two small dams that lift the water above the height difference as well overcome the water friction in the pipe. On the distance of 530 kilometers, 400 meters of altitude had to be overcome.
When choosing the route, it was decided to follow the Eastern Railway at Northam in order to be able to supply the steam-powered pumps of the pipeline with fuel through the railway and avoided the older routes to the gold fields, although the discoverer Charles Hunt in the 1860s Built wells and paths that were used for telegraph and railroad lines and for water supply in the 1890s. The wells were built using the knowledge of the Aborigines - this was the only way to reach the country on the edge of Western Australia.
The Public Works Department built a railway line to the Mundaring Railway Station to deliver supplies. The Western Australian Government Railway took over the operation of the line until 1952. The railway line was then completely abandoned in 1954.
criticism
The project was planned and constructively supervised by O'Connor. Despite being supported by Prime Minister Forrest, O'Connor faced widespread criticism and hostility from both the Western Australian Parliament and the local press for believing the task was too big and the water would never flow. There was also the opinion that gold mining would soon dry up, that the state would go into extraordinary debt and that the construction would generate little or no economic success.
Frederick Vosper , editor of the Western Australian newspaper The Sunday Times , who was also a politician, personally attacked O'Connor, questioning his integrity and competence, and accusing him of corruption. His supporter Forrest continued his career in the federal government of Australia and a new Prime Minister, George Leake , who had long been a critic of the project, took office.
The government opened an investigation into this project and found no evidence of irregularities or corruption by O'Connor. In the end, the project only exceeded the planned costs by nine percent. Later "Helana Lake" was renamed "O'Connor Lake" and a suburb of Perth bears his name.
O'Connor committed suicide in March 1902, less than twelve months before the pipeline was completed. The Prime Minister's wife, Lady Forrest, officially started pumping station number 1 on January 22, 1902, and on January 24, 1903 the water flowed into the Mt. Charlotte Reservoir at Kalgoorlie. O'Connors' chief engineer, CSR Palmer, took over the project after O'Connor's death until completion.
Construction and technology
dam
Construction of the Mundaring Dam began in 1898 and when it was completed in 1902 it was the dam with the world's highest storage capacity. The water that this dam could not contain was caught in a basin below.
After the Second World War , the dam wall was increased by a further 9.7 meters.
pipeline
The Golden Pipeline tubes were manufactured locally in Australia from flat steel supplied from Germany and the United States of America . Mephan Ferguson won the first contract to manufacture the tubes and built a factory in Falkirk, in what is now the suburb of Perth called Mayland . He produced half of the 60,000 tubes, Hoskins Engineering produced the other half near Midland Junction, now the suburbs of Perth and Fremantle , Midland .
When the pipeline was completed in 1903, it was the longest freshwater pipeline in the world. The pipeline runs partially along the former railway line of the Eastern Railway and the Eastern Goldfields Railway , so that the railway and the pipeline run together through the sparsely populated wilderness.
The pipeline required an infrastructure to supply fuel to the pumping stations. This necessity created a demand for labor and places emerged along this route. However, the delivery of fuels improved with more modern machines and automation, so that the pumping stations operated with fewer and fewer people.
In the early 1930s, 1.7 million cubic meters of water were lost annually to leaks from the pipeline, a quarter of the total volume of the Mundaring Barrage.
Pumping stations
Most of the original pumping stations were steam powered and fired with wood. The route of the pipeline therefore followed along the Eastern Railway so that the wood could be delivered by rail. In order to secure the system against malfunctions, each pumping station was equipped with additional pumps, which switched on in the event of malfunctions and ensured the water supply. In order to achieve the pressure required to overcome the inclines at stations one to four, two pumps were in operation each. Stations five to eight were operated with a pump, as there were smaller gradients between the stations.
The company of James Simpson and Co delivered 3,500 tons of equipment in 5,000 containers to the pump design and construction.
The eight pumping stations that O'Connor designed and built are:
- Number One - Mundaring Weir (now a museum)
- Number Two - Mundaring Weir (dismantled in the 1960s)
- Number Three - Cunderdin (now Cunderdin Museum)
- Number Four - Merredin (place with three generations of pumps)
- Number Five - Yerbillon
- Number Six - Ghouli
- Number Seven - Gilgai
- Number Eight - Dedari
Current pumping stations
- Mundaring
- Chidlow
- How
- Grass Valley
- Meckering
- Cunderdin
- Kellerberrin
- Baandee
- Merredine
- Walgoolan
- Yerbillon
- Nulla Nulla
- Southern Cross
- Ghooli
- Karalee
- Koorarawalyee
- Boondi
- Dedari
- Bullabulling
- Kalgoorlie
Further development
Water from the pipeline has been distributed to other cities along the route since 1907 and to the southern region of Australia since the 1950s. The Public Works Department started this project, raised the dam and completed this work in 1961.
The pipeline is run as a national trust of Australia and the so-called Golden Pipeline Project appears in travel guides and on websites. Hiking trails along the pipeline and to the old pumping stations are used by tourists.
The Trust gained regulatory authority over the water in the pipeline through an agreement with the state-owned Water Corporation in 1998, the detailed agreements of which were developed between 2001 and 2003.
In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the water level sank for several years due to water scarcity, so the dam below the Mundaring barrage , the Lower Helena Pumpback Dam, was used to pump the water up into the dam.
literature
- The Politics of the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme. The Golden Pipeline Information Sheet Number 1. National Trust of Australia (Western Australia), undated.
- JSH Le Page: Building a state: the story of the Public Works Department of Western Australia 1829–1985. In: WA Leederville: Water Authority of Western Australia. 1986, ISBN 0-7244-6862-5 .
- Articles in The Golden Age relating to the water supply at Coolgardie 1894–1898. JS Battye Library.
- Coolgardie Goldfields Water Supply: a new method of dealing with granite rocks. 1894. West Australian, February 10, 1894.
- The Agricultural areas, Great Southern Towns and Goldfields water supply scheme. Constructed by the Public Works Department, Western Australia. Completed in November 1961. Govt. Printer, Perth, WA 1961.
- National Trust (WA): The golden pipeline heritage trail guide. A time capsule of water, gold and Western Australia. The Trust, West Perth, WA 2002, ISBN 1-876507-25-X .
Web links
- The Golden Pipeline Project
- The WA National Trust website
- Percival Serle: O'Connor, Charles. In: Dictionary of Australian Biography. Angus and Robertson, Sydney 1949.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Great Man Made River Project in Libya, built from 1984 onwards, is now significantly larger
- ↑ a b O'Connor on Project Gutenberg Australia. Retrieved June 28, 2009
- ↑ The Forrest family ( Memento of the original from August 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dynasties , ABC. Retrieved June 28, 2009.
- ^ Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail ; Accessed September 14, 2012
