Country: Australia
Key Area: Water
Services: Water Asset Management

Redland Water and Waste engaged Opus to develop an asset revaluation manual for the valuation of water supply, wastewater and solid waste infrastructure.  The aim of this manual was to provide guidance for the future revaluation and to promote consistency in the approach.  The valuation needed to be acceptable to the auditor as well as complying with the relevant accounting standards. Opus undertook the subsequent full revaluation of all its water and wastewater assets based on the revaluation manual.  The project was part of Council’s 3 year asset revaluation cycle.  As part of the valuation, Opus was engaged to assess the useful lives adopted in the previous valuation and determine appropriate remaining lives based on condition assessments.  A condition assessment was undertaken for all solid waste facilities, treatment plants, reservoirs, dams and water supply pump stations.  Due to the large quantity of wastewater pump stations, a sample of twenty wastewater pump stations were used to assess the general condition based on size and age.  10 AC pipe samples (5 clean water and 5 wastewater) and 2 MSCL trunk supply main samples were assessed to verify the remaining lives for AC mains and the major trunk supply main. Opus conducted the following tasks:

• Developed valuation spreadsheets;
• Developed standard replacement costs;
• Conducted onsite inspection and validation of above ground assets
• Assessment of AC pipes;
• Assessment of asset remaining lives; 
• Identification of discrepancies in the asset register;
• Comparison of the Opus valuation with the previous valuation and identification of reasons for substantial differences; and
• Preparation of revaluation reports.