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---
title: Reclaiming our water
author: Dasapta Erwin Irawan
date: 20 June 2014
---


Reclaiming our water
=============

```Did you know that Sydney Olympic Park reclaims water since 2000?}```

I took my daughter for a swim yesterday at The Sydney Aquatic Center. Before we go, I did a quick checked on its website to see their maintenance schedule. Then I saw an interesting information about its water management system (```http://www.sopa.nsw.gov.au/our_park/environment/water```)

Sydney Olympic Park's water system has been managed under Water Reclamation and Management Scheme (WRAMS). The scheme was started in 2000 and was Australia’s first large-scale urban water treatment scheme. The system was following the integrated water model issued by Sydney Olympic Park Management (see the following figure). It covers not only the sport facilities but also the surrounding supporting elements: settlements, hotels and apartments. WRAMS recycles water from sewage and stormwater for irrigation, ornamental water fountains and toilet flushing applications across all the connected facilities in the park and in the suburb of Newington. This water is supplied to customers through separate meters and at a considerably low cost. Statistically, WRAMS saves more than 850 million litres of potable water yearly by avoiding its use for non-drinking purposes.  Then the sewer-mining function of WRAMS treats approximately 550 million litres of sewage annually. All of this water would have been discharged to open water, otherwise. Can you imagine how is the plumbing system in that place.


![Sydney Olympic Park Integrated Water System](intwatersystem.png)


What is water reclamation. It begins with the word ```reclaim```. According to the online dictionary, it means to retrieve or recover (something) that "previously" or "potentially" lost. In this case "water lost" would be the problem. So then water reclamation is a process by which wastewater from a facility or a communal of facilities (it can be homes and/or businesses) is cleaned using biological and chemical treatment so that the water can be returned to the environment safely to keep the water balance in the system. This first small reclamation system was first introduced in 1932 in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, while the first Australia's water recycle innitiative was started in 1977. Then it vastly develop from just a settling pond technology, chemical additive, to high-tech selective membrane.