BYRON SHIRE COUNCIL has won a National Local Government Award for "Environment - Natural Resource Management" for the creation of the "West Byron Integrated Water Management Reserve".

Martin Selecki, ETA's general manager, has been very actively involved since 1997 in the vision, design and management of the whole reserve, as an original member of Council's Byron Bay Waste Water Steering Committee.

The Committee chose Dr Keith Bolton, managing director of ETA, in partnership with Southern Cross University and Byron Shire Council, to manage the construction of the 24 hectare melaleuca wetlands, with effluent irrigation, which has solved both the acid sulfate and sewage effluent problems.

ETA's project manager Jayson Winmill managed much of the planting and irrigation setup.

Martin created and chaired Council's Byron Bay Wetland Design Panel, with 16 eminent scientists and engineers, and was then engaged by BSC to film the Water Reserve development from 1998 to 2006.

The video is available through BSC, filmstream.com.au or ETA. Our company has extensive experience and expertise to design and construct award-winning large wetlands for natural and effective treatment of sewage, stormwater, industrial and agricultural effluents.

Link: Byron Bay Integrated Water Management Reserve

ETA is planting 1,500 paperbark trees in wetland tubs to purify sewage in our wetland project for 80 people at Malabugilmah Aboriginal Community. Seven wetland clusters treat household effluent to a high-quality secondary standard and then irrigate the subsoil of a new football field.

'This project is really about turning wastewater into resourcewater", says enthused Managing Director Dr Keith Bolton. "The previous sewage treatment facility was failing, and was discharging poorly treated effluent into the local creek. The new treatment system provides a much higher degree of treatment, and no effluent is discharged into the creek.
This project has had members of the Community involved in all stages of design and construction"