Project
Location
In the Darling river below Menindee township.
Requirements
To try and infuse oxygen into stretches of the Darling to create a refuge for native fish species.
Services Provided
Millewa Pumping came up with our own design to infuse oxygen into the darling river using one of our pumps. This process began as an experiment though due to its effectiveness quickly gained attention and was able to secure funding to continue the project and manage to prevent fish deaths in a section of the darling river during the hottest part of the 2018 year.
Equipment Used
- 10” pump mounted on skid with inbuilt fuel tank.
- 12m of poly pipe for suction.
- 300m of layflat and 20m of poly pipe for delivery.
Client's Report
On behalf of DPI NSW Fisheries, I wish to thank Millewa Pumping for their assistance in preventing escalation of fish death events that occurred in the Darling River near Menindee over summer of 2018-19. The fish deaths in nearby stretches of the Darling occurred due to hypoxia (loss of dissolved oxygen which is required by fish), linked sudden weather driven mixing of stratified water-bodies. On our request, Millewa Pumping installed a pump system to aerate and disperse water of higher oxygen concentration through a section of key native fish habitat in the Darling River (from late January to late March 2019). Analysis of water quality data collected through Summer and Autumn of 2019 demonstrated that the pump system you installed prevented fish deaths in the section of the river.
“There is no doubt that the operation of the aerator pump installed by Millewa Pumping prevented multiple fish death events in a short, but critically important section of the Darling River “.
Iain Ellis, Fisheries Manager NSW DPI Fisheries and
Professor Darren Baldwin, Charles Sturt University