Works have begun on the renewal of one of Western Australia’s oldest working pieces of infrastructure – the Perth to Kalgoorlie water pipeline.
About 44.5 kilometres of the 566 kilometre-long pipeline, designed by famed WA engineer CY O’Connor, will be replaced to boost the amount of water able to be pumped through it by 10 per cent.
The $543 million project also includes doubling the Binduli Reservoir capacity from 400 million litres to 800 million litres.
The demand for water in the Goldfields has increased by 16 per cent in the past five years, and Kalgoorlie’s mining industry is currently hampered by its lack of commercial water supply, with the existing pipeline for drinking water only.
Most businesses draw water from the ground, which is six times as salty as seawater.
WA Water Minister Daniel Pastorelli said, from 2027, an additional 7.2 million litres would flow into the Goldfields every day.
“The Goldfields pipeline is one of the most important pieces of economic infrastructure in the state’s history,” he said.
“It served the Goldfields and the Wheatbelt for now 120 years, providing water to a whole vast range of different communities and industries, and supported economic development for many, many years.
“Today marks the beginning of the next chapter.”
The new section of the pipeline runs through the shires of Westonia, Merredin, and Yilgarn, and much of it will be buried.
“The pipelines are being manufactured and delivered locally, and will last up to 150 years,” Pastorelli said.
The pipeline was the brainchild of WA’s first engineer-in-chief, Charles Yelverton (CY) O’Connor.
Work began in the late 1890s after the first gold was discovered in what is now the (aptly named) Goldfields.
The pipeline was completed in 1903, but, famously, O’Connor never got to see water pumping through it because he killed himself at South Beach in Fremantle three weeks before the first pump station began operating amid a royal commission into the project.
Premier Roger Cook flagged this project was the first of more stages yet to be announced.
The Cook government has previously raised pumping desalinated water from Esperence into the Goldfields as another solution to the region’s water woes.
On Monday, Cook said that idea had been probed, but it was decided upgrading the existing Perth pipeline was a better investment. However, he noted Esperence would need a desalination plant at some point.
“We will need desalination plants that link and breadth of this state, both as part of a growing economy but also a drying planet,” he said.
“Whether you ultimately see a desalination plant in Esperance feeding the Goldfields region more generally, or simply meeting the needs of the growing Esperance community, I think you will need desal there.”
Kalgoorlie Mayor Glenn Wilson welcomed the start of works.
“If it wasn’t for water here in Kalgoorlie-Boulder, we wouldn’t be here,” he said.
“We welcome, after many years of not having a lot of maintenance or love spent on a pipeline, we’ve got it now and it’s happening.”
Hamish Hastie is WAtoday’s state political reporter and the winner of five WA Media Awards, including the 2023 Beck Prize for best political journalism.Connect via X or email.