GWM Water has acquired a design concept that optimises water from Lake Fyans, Mt Cole reservoir and Mt William headworks for the proposed East Grampians rural pipeline.
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GWM Water's latest edition of In the Pipeline said the concept network design includes a five-kilometre buffer which proposes connections to several properties outside the original boundary.
The pipeline was committed four years ago when the Victorian government nominated it's support from a funding perspective to go into the state budget and in 2019 the project received a further $32 million in federal funding.
Grampians Wimmera Mallee water managing director Mark Williams said construction was due to commence for the pipeline "in the next few months".
"We are at a point where we are almost ready to commit, we are looking at the construction element of the contract in the next few months," he said.
"It was earlier this year when the board formally committed to that refined design concept."
Mr Williams said the final assessments were being made before construction can commence.
"This has been in advanced planning for a while," he said.
"We have been going through the process of doing the environmental risk assessments and the cultural heritage assessments.
"Our main planning work has been done, we just need to get some final planning approvals."
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Mr Williams said there was currently a delay in construction due to uncertainty from funding partners and land owners.
"We are just seeking to get some certainty from our funding partners and the commonwealth government as to whether they should or should not be included in the project," he said.
"The broadest biggest issue that we are working through is when we invited expressions of interest we invited land owners.
"There were a number of land owners from outside of the nominated boundary for the project who showed interest and we have included them in some of the concepts at this stage."
Mr Williams said the pipeline that travels into Ararat from Lake Fyans would be upgraded.
"There is currently a pipeline that comes into Ararat from Lake Fyans which has been there for some time so we are picking up on that water source," he said,
"There will be a bit of an upgrade to that pipeline as well in its refinement of its design from concept to detail in the design."
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