Article Masthead
- Category: Capital Projects & Infrastructure
- Topic: PFAS Drinking Water Treatment
- Region: Asia-Pacific
- Signal Type: Treatment Procurement / Water-Supply Resilience
- Published Date: 2026-10-05
01 What Happened
Narrabri Shire Council reported on October 5 that the Killarney Street Bore remains switched off because PFAS testing continues to show the source is unsuitable for direct use under the current guideline framework. Samples collected on September 17 measured PFOS at 24 ng/L, compared with the council-cited guideline of 8 ng/L. PFHxS was 29 ng/L, close to but below the cited 30 ng/L guideline; PFBS was 5 ng/L and PFOA 2 ng/L.
The town supply itself remains within the reported guideline values. September results for the Namoi Reservoir were PFOS 2 ng/L and PFHxS 1 ng/L, with PFOA and PFBS not detected. Council says it will procure a water treatment plant to bring the Killarney Street Bore back online.
A September 21 council update provides the procurement detail: the temporary plant is planned to treat 55 L/s, using a hire-to-buy arrangement through an Expression of Interest process and supported by the NSW Government PFAS Emergency grant. Procurement and installation remain subject to the required state endorsement. NSW Public Works Advisory has also been engaged to study options for long-term PFAS reduction across the Narrabri water supply.
02 Key Takeaways
01 The immediate project is a temporary 55 L/s treatment solution intended to recover a currently unavailable groundwater source.
02 PFOS is the principal reported exceedance at the Killarney Bore; the finished town supply continues to meet the council-reported drinking-water guideline values.
03 The temporary plant and the separate long-term options study show a two-horizon response: restore near-term source capacity while deciding how PFAS should be managed system-wide.
03 Why It Matters
For smaller and regional water systems, losing a production bore can reduce drought and peak-demand resilience even when the remaining distributed water is compliant. A temporary treatment plant can therefore be valuable as a water-supply security asset, not only as a contaminant-removal unit.
PFAS projects also require careful distinction between finished-water performance and residual management. The council has not publicly identified the final treatment technology in the October 5 update, so media type, process configuration and waste pathway should not be assumed.
04 ATLAS Engineering View
ATLAS would treat the 55 L/s unit as a source-specific PFAS design problem. Technology selection should be based on the actual PFAS profile, dissolved organic carbon and other competing constituents, target finished-water limits, expected loading variability and the required operating run length between media change or regeneration events.
If adsorption or ion-exchange media are selected, breakthrough criteria, lead-lag configuration, vessel hydraulics, spent-media handling and replacement logistics will directly affect reliability and lifecycle cost. If a membrane process is considered, recovery and concentrate disposal become central. The long-term study is therefore important because the optimum temporary solution is not automatically the optimum whole-system strategy.