Reducing the risk
This information will help you to reduce your potential risk of damaging our assets and the impact that our assets can have on your work.
If you are considering working near our assets, we recommend you consider the following options to reduce your risk of damage (in order of preference).
Water Corporation will not be responsible for any costs associated with offsetting the risks of your work, or any damage caused by your work.
In all instances, the preferred option is for you to redesign your work to be outside the prescribed proximities of our assets.
Where you are not able to redesign, our assets may be able to be relocated, raised or reconfigured.
Depending on the type of asset affected, relocation works may need to be completed by one of the design engineers for our prequalified list of designers. Please note our prequalified list of designers is currently being updated.
All proposed relocations shall be in accordance with current editions of applicable Water Corporation and Australian Standards. To enquire about design standards or request access to our standards, please email idb.standardsenquiries@watercorporation.com.au
Review Section 5 of our guidelines to find out more about our relocation requirements.
Where redesigning your work and relocating our assets is not practicable, we may allow you to work within the prescribed proximities.
We will only consider this option if you:
- adhere to our technical requirements for working near our assets (see Section 8)
- can demonstrate that redesigning your work and relocating our asset is not feasible
- where necessary, employ methods that protect our asset and your work from damage:
- Temporary protection – this type of protection is typically used for temporary works that will only remain in position for a short time, and can include:
- Adapting your work methods – such as shoring to temporarily support an excavation with shores where this is a risk of the excavation damaging a nearby asset due to loss of ground support
- Selecting alternative construction equipment – such as using ground compaction equipment that generates smaller vibrations.
- Permanent protection – this type of protection is typically used for permanent works that will remain in position for a long time such as buildings and structures.
All permanent protection works shall be designed with a 100 year design life, and shall be in accordance with current editions of applicable Water Corporation and Australian Standards.
Drawings for all permanent protection works are to be certified by the Design Engineer and submitted to the Water Corporation for approval. Water Corporation will not check the structural design. It is the designer's responsibility to ensure that the selected protection method is suitable for the particular application, including confirming that the ground conditions are acceptable for the final design.
Depending on the type of asset affected, protection works may need to be completed by one of the design engineers from our prequalified list of designers.
Common types of protection methods include:
- bridging slabs
- sleeves
- tunnels
- concrete encasement (not preferred)
Review section 5 of our guidelines to find out more about our protection requirements.