EWB Connect Corporate Partner: Arup

Community Partners: Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation, Community Housing Limited

The Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation has aspirations for its home country.
The Nyaliga community is currently focused on Karunjie, which was historically a cattle station in Western Australia. Viable power and water solutions needed to be identified so that the land could be divested back to Nyaliga from the Indigenous Land Corporation. This enables Nyaliga to move closer to realising their vision of a growing, healthy community that is connected to country and culture.

Elder Donald Campbell, community leaders Desley and William Gallagher, and the people of Nyaliga engaged engineers through EWB Australia’s pro bono program, EWB Connect, to produce a report outlining how to improve their access to good quality water and increase their power capacity in cost effective and sustainable ways so that they can return to country.

The aspiration…
Karunjie is a station, 160 kilometres south west of Wyndham, Western Australia. The Nyaliga people have family connections to the Karunjie land that spans tens of thousands of years. After colonisation, a homestead and cattle station was established on Karunjie. In the early 20th century, the station was overseen by Jack Campbell. He was an indigenous man who married a traditional owner and had several children whose families lived and worked on the station in return for food and clothes.

Now the land is currently owned by Indigenous Land Corporation (ILC) who are supporting the Nyaliga people to take back ownership and management of their home country.

The Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation has a vision for its future. That vision requires development of the land so that it can support this growing, thriving community to get back to their home country. Those developments include:

1. Three community houses near the airstrip on Karunjie, for traditional owners to spend time on country with families.
2. A Ranger Station on Karunjie so that rangers can stay on country and take care of the land.
3. A Meatworks plant to establish an Aboriginal owned enterprise that can supply the region with organic beef and earn an income for the community.
4. A Roadhouse to supply the planned tourism activities in the area.

Several projects are already under way to make that vision a reality including a proposed lease of land to a cattle-mustering company and tourism ventures. The Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation is already responsible for managing Right Way burning in the area and other ranger activities.

The main source of water is from the local bore, which has to be boiled before drinking due to a range of contaminants. A common power solution is often to equip the site with a diesel-powered generator. But while generators are relatively inexpensive, diesel costs are high, and the use of fossil fuelled technology carries its own environmental costs.

What happened…
Elder and community leader Donald Campbell, a descendant of Jack Campbell, grew up on the station before going to Wyndham with his family. Community leaders Desley and William Gallagher are also traditional owners of this land. There is a lot of local knowledge and respect for the country. That’s why they are looking for the right answers to their water and power questions. They approached Rachel Lattimore at Community Housing Limited (CHL) to help them find the solutions.

At their request, CHL works with local communities to develop their capacity for self-determination. The CHL acts as a facilitator between Aboriginal communities and the organisations, and processes, that can help them achieve their vision.

At the same time, an integrated essential services and social enterprise organisation, Utility360 who was engaged with CHL, meet with the Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation with a view to pilot a project that would provide functional, reliable and safe off-grid drinking water and energy infrastructure.

Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation wanted to ensure that Utility360 was the most viable solution. So they engaged the support of Engineers Without Borders Australia’s program EWB Connect, with the support of both CHL and Utility360.

Rachel worked with EWB Connect, to find pro bono services that could help the community find the answers they need. Without the EWB Connect program it may have been harder for CHL to find the right engineering partner who could have connected the community’s current challenges and opportunities to its future vision. As Rachel says, “EWB Connect are working to advocate on the side of the community, so they were essential in making sure that the scope was right from the beginning. They had the language and they had the technical knowledge. I don’t think the project would have happened and met the community’s needs, if it wasn’t for EWB Connect.”

EWB Connect introduced the Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation and CHL to Arup, an independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists that works across every aspect of the built environment. Arup assigned two members of its team to the project; Simon Schutz who looked at the water solutions, and Jack Clarke who focussed on the community scale remote power solutions.

Jack and Simon visited the community in the wet season to help find the most appropriate water and power solutions for when the area is cut off. Simon says, “We met the community Elders at the airport, jumped in a very small plane, and lived with them for two days.” Jack and Simon did whatever the community did. They were gently-paced, long, fascinating days without too much structure. Sitting around the fire, Jack says, “We spent two days essentially listening to story-telling, which varied between project specific as well as background stuff. It was really interesting.”

Jack and Simon asked open-ended questions to hear the community’s aspirations. Simon and Jack also attended a Nyaliga board meeting to consult with other key community stakeholders.

Simon says, “The community started talking about what they wanted to do on the site. They wanted people to live up there. When you start to think about what that means for power and water, you actually need to think about the housing. A default solution might be a Donger, which is a container fitted out with a couple of bedrooms. That would need air conditioners to keep it at a reasonable temperature, which would have a big impact on the power supply. We started to break that down for them to talk about alternatives, instead of a Donger. How can you make it more energy efficient? You might have slightly higher capital cost on your accommodation, but then your power supply looks very different and your ongoing power costs are much lower.”

Jack adds, “The short-term solution to the power issue is often a diesel generator. That is an expensive solution in the long-run.” Simon says, “Like any family that wants to move (off the grid), it’s very different when you haven’t had to think about how to supply power when you can’t connect to the powerline out the front, or when you haven’t had to think about how to get safe drinking water when you’ve always been able to turn on a tap.” Jack adds, “It’s very hard to imagine, unless it’s your job.”

The outcomes…
In the final report, Arup put forward practical options that has resulted in the ILC putting aside funds to install solar panels with battery capacity. As well as representing a significant shift towards a broader acceptance of long-term, sustainable power solutions, it will be a critical step for the Nyaliga people to get back on country.

Nyaliga community is currently getting carbon credits for their fire prevention work. Arup has volunteered to help the community find purchasers for their $120,000 worth of credits. This could be real and vital money to support the community and further develop the land.

The Nyaliga community is now looking at its options and building a ten-year plan for growth. The people are looking ahead and keeping their broader vision in their sights.

The learnings…
A key project success was the collaborative relationship between Arup and the Nyaliga community, which has since deepened. Arup honoured the community’s knowledge and went into the project as true partners with complementary skills. As Jack says, “They want to be back on their land with their family, and then we work back on how to get there. Their aspirations are social and we’re applying the technical applications.”

Having a partner like Rachel at CHL meant that Jack and Simon learnt how to immerse themselves into the community in a culturally sensitive and appropriate way. Without a community partner like CHL, business partners may find it valuable, indeed EWB Connect would suggest it necessary, to invest in cultural training for their staff.

What’s happening now?
The bore water is currently sitting underneath a cattle yard and before water treatment infrastructure can be installed on-site, the community needs to determine its quality and what treatment is required to make the water safe to drink. This has led to another pro bono project with Arup to collect and test water samples. Project partners are also starting to look at different options, such as surface or spring water.

The conversations between the community and the engineers continue. Fortunately, there are many good heads at the table, including the community who know and respect the land. Working together, they can figure out the solutions.

The Nyaliga Aboriginal Corporation are seeking to reconnect with their traditional homelands in order to connect back with their country and culture, and preserve it for future generations. That is why Nyaliga want to create social enterprise opportunities, and establish environmentally sustainable ways to live on and manage their country.

OVERVIEW

CERES Community Environment Park is a self-funded, non-profit organisation focussed on community based learning and action. One thousand people a day visit their 9.5-acre site in Melbourne’s inner north.

A core part of CERES programs is delivering environmental education to primary school children. Many of the most popular programs are based around a dam where children identify species and learn about the complexity of aquatic eco-systems. The dam also plays an important role in recreation at CERES.

Currently the dam is used by up to four groups of 25 school children every day, is full of weeds and is subject to large fluctuations in water levels.

“A lot of visitors enjoy the dam and it’s a focus of our education programs,” says Nick Curmi, CERES Site Manager. “We don’t want the kids experience at the dam to be about mud and weeds, we want it to be about the amazing things they are collecting when they do the activities. The project with AECOM was about creating an appealing recreation place and an ideal canvas to deliver the information.”

CERES does not have the means to engage specialist technical advice on a full fee basis and needed support to source pro bono services to develop a comprehensive design for a constructed wetland.

The designs and documentation provided by AECOM will enable CERES to improve the dam’s aesthetics and increase capacity for the site to function as an education platform. Specific recommendations include improving the dam liner, installing a safety fence around one section of the dam, re-shaping the dam profile to combat water level fluctuations and using the planting list to improve species diversity and create a healthier eco system.

LEARNINGS

AECOM is a global engineering consultancy which takes great pride in its Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. The company viewed the CERES project (one of their first in Australia via EWB Connect) as an opportunity to apply these principles and develop their pro-bono capacity.

Jonathan Hesselberg, Senior Project Manager, AECOM, says the project was good match for the Melbourne office which boasts an extensive, highly skilled Water Group, with resources to meet project needs, from a Technical Director through to Graduate Engineers.

Despite being well resourced, AECOM encountered challenges with the CERES project which Jonathan says were mainly due to the nature of pro-bono engineering projects – finding ways to account for a budget with only cost involved, managing scope changes and addressing legal and contractual risks for a zero-income project.

“We had a lot of question marks at each step,” says Jonathan. “If you could sum up the whole learning experience in one sentence, it’s “Pro bono projects need to be managed as if they are a normal project.”

Community partner CERES also faced unforeseen challenges. Nick said he found it difficult to provide timely feedback on design iterations. In his role as Site Manager, he liaises with a variety of stakeholders including education and horticulture and he found it took more time than he would have liked to get the relevant people together, get their opinions, collate all the responses and provide feedback to AECOM.

“I feel I needed more time to honour AECOM’s skill set,” says Nick.  “The acknowledgement of the significance of what AECOM were offering through EWB Connect means I would like to have been more responsive.”

Nick says next time CERES is the beneficiary of a major pro bono offering, he will spend more time up front on initial introductions to understand everyone’s capacities and work with the partner to establish clear parameters on where the responsibilities lie and how best to manage the project.

IMPACT

The provision by AECOM of a concept design for a constructed wetland and related analysis and reports means CERES now has the confidence to invest in improvements to sustain one of their most important natural assets.

“The EWB Connect project with AECOM was a really beneficial way for us to get a lot of high quality advice. In my job, the most difficult thing is design, once you have a plan, you can establish an incremental approach to implementation through grants, donations and volunteers,” explains Nick. “Having the well-articulated concept designs from AECOM that our diverse stakeholders can respond to and develop into a final concept – that’s incredibly valuable to us.”

Jonathan says the project was a valuable learning experience for all the staff who were involved, particularly less experienced staff members who had the opportunity to develop their technical skills and foster their adaptability, which he says is a key skill for engineers.

“The AECOM staff got a lot of satisfaction from being involved in this project. Most of our clients are big organisations, so I really enjoyed working with a completely different organisation and creating something to benefit a different group of people,” says Jonathan.

“The EWB Connect program provides a fantastic opportunity to volunteer or be charitable with your time using your professional skills rather than dropping a gold coin in a box,” adds Jonathan. “It enables you to spend your time and expertise in a way where you are making a difference to other people, to a community –  that’s the most powerful thing about it.”

Since the completion of the CERES pro bono project, AECOM, has committed to fund five pro-bono projects in 2017.

OVERVIEW

The Lama Lama people in Cape York have been struggling with water issues for nearly a decade, but needed detailed designs and cost estimates to source funding for new infrastructure.

“The Lama Lama people were in a classic catch-22 situation,” says Andre Grant, Team Leader QLD, Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT), who coordinated the community liaison.  “They had limited resources to deal with an infrastructure situation, but needed design input up front to figure out a solution.”

Since the original water intake was destroyed by a cyclone in 2006, the community has been using a diesel pump to extract water from the Port Stewart River. Each year in the dry season, when water levels fall below the bed sand, an improvised pond is excavated in the river bed to enable them to continue pumping water. The improvised arrangements are prone to contamination and present risks to the safety and reliability of the supply.

Andre and Gavin Bassani, Operations Manager, Yintingga Aboriginal Corporation (YAC) decided they were frustrated with people visiting the site and writing reports with no result. Andre approached EWB Connect for assistance and Arup, who is one of the founding members of EWB Connect, agreed to provide specialist water engineering services and work with CAT and the local community to design a robust, sustainable, fully costed long term solution.

The final design will comprise a new non-vertical bore intake abstracting water from below the bed sands of the Port Stewart river (utilising solar powered and submersible bore pumps with a back-up diesel generator), a low maintenance aeration filtration system to remove the high iron concentrations and interconnections with the existing elevated reservoirs and distribution system.

LEARNINGS

The design of the new water supply infrastructure was led by Sam Koci, Senior Water Engineer, Arup, who specialises in water infrastructure and design and management for remote communities.

The strong, long term relationship between CAT and Arup enabled a flexible approach throughout the project. While the initial scope was limited to the design of a new intake, due to project delays associated with securing funding for construction, Arup offered to provide additional services to identify and design a suitable water treatment (iron removal) system. This work is led by Priyani Madan, Water Engineer, from the Melbourne office.

In reviewing treatment options, Priyani sought advice from expert engineers at Arup. She also did her own research and consulted with other remote Indigenous community water supply operators to find a preferred solution that was appropriate to the context and within the technical and financial capacity of the YAC to operate and maintain.

“Finding an appropriate technology was my biggest challenge. It’s astounding this small project has taught me how different engineering and appropriate technology engineering are. They have similar principles and technologies, but appropriate technology has so many more constraints and so much more to think about and that is something I will take away from this experience.”

The preferred water treatment option is an innovative aeration filtration system designed to remove the high iron concentrations from the water. It requires no power or chemicals and very limited operation and maintenance. A similar system is utilised in the nearby Wujal Wujal community and is understood to be very effective.

From the community liaison side, Andre says the project reinforced the need to treat pro bono projects like normal projects – to be professional, have appropriate processes in place and establish clear boundaries around the company’s involvement.

“We need to act like a client and they need act like a service provider,” he says. “This keeps managers and decision makers happy as they can see there’s no scope creep and we need very clear boundaries with opportunities for extension if the company is interested.”

IMPACT

The design and cost estimates provided by Arup have enabled CfAT to apply for funding and they are now in the final stages of sourcing funds for construction of the new water supply infrastructure.

Gavin says “We now have a fully engineered design and are chasing funding to get it built. When it’s installed, we will have something everyone else in Australia takes for granted, a reliable water supply. Once we have that, we can pursue economic opportunities like improving our safari camp.”

Reflecting on her involvement, Priyani says, “Being exposed to pro bono projects is really interesting because you learn about different communities. I’ve gained technical knowledge, got really good experience in project management from being given responsibility for part of the project and learnt a lot about appropriate technology.  Putting engineering theory into practice in this sort of situation makes you much more creative in the way you think and helps with your day to day work.”

“Projects like this make me more passionate about working because I feel it’s really making a difference. I think it’s really cool to spend my time at work on something that is really making a change,” she adds.

Andre, who has worked with the Lama Lama community for over 10 years, says it is a great outcome. “Without EWB Connect, none of this would have been solved. Our role at CfAT is to help facilitate solutions to technical challenges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face to exercising their right live on country and look after the land. This EWB Connect project is a great example of catalytic intervention by an engineering company that will facilitate a positive social outcome.”