Remote Area Essential Services Program
Western Australia
Client: Western Australia Department of Housing and Works
Parsons Brinckerhoff Role: Program Management, Water Quality Monitoring, Construction
Parsons Brinckerhoff manages the Remote Area Essential Services Program (RAESP), which delivers safe, reliable drinking water to some of the most isolated people in Western Australia, the driest part of the driest inhabited continent on earth.
Parsons Brinckerhoff provides technical support and advice to three regional service providers (RSP) in the Kimberley, Pilbara and Western Desert regions. The RSPs — commercial operators contracted directly to Department of Housing and Works — carry out necessary maintenance and monitoring to keep essential services operating safely and efficiently in remote Aboriginal communities.
RSP staff regularly visit each community to monitor drinking water quality, and to check and service power and sewerage systems.
The program is working toward implementing the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines 2004 and the Framework for Management of Drinking Water Quality. It provides monthly sampling of water supplies in 91 communities, and is achieving targets for microbiological and chemical water quality (95 percent compliance with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines).
RAESP has been operating since 1986, with Parsons Brinckerhoff managing the program since 2005. Parsons Brinckerhoff provides a multidisciplinary team with skills and experience in program management, project management, accounting and finance management, contract supervision, remote area water and wastewater services, remote area power systems, Aboriginal liaison, asset management, water quality sampling, and public health.
In 2011, RAESP won the Regional Engineers Australia award for Engineering for Regional Communities and the IPA National Infrastructure award for Smart Infrastructure.