Engineering Excellence Awards, 2007
The Engineering Excellence Awards, for Engineers Australia Newcastle Division, were held on Friday September 7, 2007 in Newcastle. The black tie event was held at the Newcastle Conservatorium and was followed by dinner and entertainment at the Newcastle Town Hall. The awards celebrate excellence in engineering within the Newcastle area and the themes for this year were Leadership, Performance, Planning and Execution. Over 500 engineers and partners diverged on Newcastle, to view the engineering accomplishments of 19 finalists. The entries were chosen to highlight the widespread nature of engineering excellence and also to highlight the variety of projects being undertaken in Newcastle currently. There were four Highly Commended Awards, four Excellence Awards and an Overall Excellence Winner. All the entries endured a rigorous judging process and those that won the Excellence Awards have the choice to progress to the National Engineering Excellence Awards being held in Canberra later in the year.
The judges comments were: This is a world class project which is a major benefit to Newcastle and the nation as it restores a large valuable site with deep water access which will become a national asset. The project has been meticulously planned and executed which with extensive preliminary planning and rigorous modeling to develop the most cost effective long term solution. This included extensive peer review at various stages of the project and appropriate selection of Australian and international contractors to match the required expertise. A particular feature was the clever and extensive use of existing materials which contributed to the sustainability of the project.
Global Pacific was very excited to be involved in this event and it was through the contract management work that they are undertaking on the Deep Barrier Wall at the Former Steel Works Site Newcastle. Those from Global Pacific that attended were; Managing Director, Bruce Warner; Manager NSW, Daniel Ellul; Project Manager Sasha Sremcevic and their partners.
The deep barrier wall is part of a strategy to remediate the contaminated Newcastle Steelworks site and is a 1.5 kilometre long soil bentonite barrier wall. It is the largest of its kind in the world, at its deepest sitting at 49 metres under the ground, and substantial technical challenges have had to be overcome before and during its construction so as to guarantee a successful completion.
As one of the 19 finalists, the Deep Barrier Wall project was up against projects such as the Port Waratah Coal Services Project 3D, the Port Macquarie Urban Reclaimed Water Supply Scheme and the Five Islands Road Upgrade. Everyone who worked on the project was delighted when it was one of the four Excellence Award winners.