Barwon Water and Colac Otway Shire hosted a wastewater solutions assessment session in early October 2018, followed by a paper based survey inviting community members to nominate their preferred wastewater solution.

Since this time, our technical consultants have been using this feedback to assess all four solution packages against the community’s agreed wastewater vision and associated success measures.

While there was a range of views, Solution 3 received the highest level of support from the community and was therefore nominated as the preferred solution. This solution involves upgrading onsite systems (where necessary) to contain wastewater on individual properties, with an additional, centralised system to handle excess. This solution was also supported by technical experts.

Both the Barwon Water Board and Colac Otway Shire Council have agreed to move the project to the business case phase, which will further investigate the preferred solution, identifying project benefits, governance and funding opportunities to facilitate the potential delivery of the solution that is affordable to residents.

A steering group made up of Barwon Water, Colac Otway Shire, the Environment Protection Authority, Regional Development Victoria and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, with support from technical experts, has been established and will be involved in the business case development.

Barwon Water and Colac Otway Shire expect the business case will be shared with the local community in the first half of 2019 and will continue to keep the local community of Forrest and key stakeholders informed as the project progresses.