Lord Howe Island Somerset Apartments Wastewater Treatment System Upgrade
It has been a long process to get Somerset's old septic systems upgraded to new wastewater treatment systems. Civcon first visited Lord Howe back in 2015 when Mick Adams, Civcon's Managing director and Karl Atkin General manager visited, and spoke to many locals and businesses regarding upgrading to wastewater treatment systems. On this first trip we visited Somerset and spoke with Gai Wilson, one of the owners, regarding upgrades, Gai was keen to upgrade, but needed the other business partners to sign off, this eventually took a further eight years to finally get the go ahead. Now ten years later we are nearing completion of the installation and commissioning, due end of July 2025.
Somerset's location on the central, level area of the Island allows easy walking and biking to nearby shops, restaurants. We are minutes from popular Ned's Beach where you can hand feed the fish, swim or snorkel. Just as close is our beautiful reef-fringed lagoon, where you can swim in the crystal clear water and laze on the white sandy beach.
Ned’s beach Lord Howe Island
The units at Somerset are nestled in subtropical palm groves, alive with splashes of colour from Hawaiian hibiscus and fragrant frangipani flowers. The grounds are well planned, with tracks leading through the palms and gardens giving a sense of seclusion and tropical mystery. Perfectly situated between Ned's beach and the Lagoon, allowing easy walking and biking to nearby shops, restaurants and tour operators. Self-catering units include kitchen facilities, beach towels, backpacks and much more. BBQ facilities onsite.
Somerset has 25 self-catering apartments. Choose from a range of one, two and three bedroom apartments. Each unit has an ensuite bathroom, separate bedroom and living areas giving space and privacy, and a covered veranda with tables and chairs for entertainment and relaxation.
Somerset Apartments
Over the past 10 years Civcon have provided many Fuji Clean systems to Lord Howe, in both Commercial and Domestic Wastewater treatment systems. Blue Lagoon was the first commercial, followed by Pine trees, The Waste Management Facility, Board, Bowling Club, School Gov House and Child Care Cluster. The Nursery, Police Station, just to name a few, and a large number of domestic Fuji Clean CE1500 and now the new ACE1200 systems.
The past 10 years Civcon Water Services have continued to come to Lord Howe to assist with installations and train the locals on how to service wastewater treatments to a high standard. Lord Howe is a UNESO World Heritage listed Island and the last thing anyone wants is see the Island damaged. Civcon will always stand behind our products and provide assistance and support when requested, our reputation in the industry stands alone.
Lord Howe Island is approximately 600klm east of Port Macquarie
A lot of things have changed in the past 10 years, pricing of products, labour, shipping to Lord Howe has all seen major price increases. The local council (Board) as it is called on Lord Howe has had major staffing changes and the approval process is totally different to 10 years ago, which caused major delays with the Somerset system approval, delaying for more than 12 months. With the onflow of budget blow outs due to additional supporting documents having to be commissioned and produced to gain approval of the wastewater system upgrade, causing additional stress and anxiety to the owners of Somerset and to Civcon itself.
Lagoon and The Jetty in foreground Lord Howe Island
May 2025
After a delay of more than 12 months due to Governing authority approval process changes, Somerset received their approval to install and construction certificate. The upgrade at Somerset will involve some major works and excavations, due to the layout of the property and Teran, old failing concrete septic tanks will be replaced with Poly Pump wells of varying sizes, fitted with Positive Displacement grinder pumps which will than feed the untreated waste to one of the two Commercial Waste water treatment systems one located at the front of the property and one at the back, treated waste will than pump through filters and then distribute to the total 4000m2 irrigation disposal area.
Late June 2025
Cameron Kirkpatrick ("K"‘ as he is known on LHI) the local jack of all trades and Civcon's agent for Fuji Clean on Lord Howe, started the difficult process of installation of approximately 4000 lineal meters of 16mm Netafim Uni-bio line. Even though all the irrigation line is to be laid on the surface, the process of laying pipework throughout a native forest is difficult at best, and due to the Island approval, all this irrigation is laid in what is called Significant Native Vegetation (SNV) which cannot be disturbed. This process will take a number of weeks to complete, due to Teran, access and labour availability. K is also looking after all the other wastewater installations at Somerset, which involve a number of upgrades and new installations of Pump Wells and all the associated poly pipe connections between all of the systems, irrigation and pump wells on behalf of Civcon and Somerset.
De-commissioning of the old septic tanks commenced, the old concrete septic tank at Sarong apartments was removed and replaced with 2 x 1650 litre poly pump wells, the first well to be used as a collection well with the second as a pump chamber, the pump chamber was fitted with a Positive displacement grinder pump, with stainless steel pump control panel located next to the pump well. Waste product from this pump well will transfer to the Fuji PCN10 wastewater treatment system. The Main concrete septic tank at the front of Somerset apartments next to Ned's Beach Rd was de-commissioned and removed, the hole for the PCN10 was excavated.
Friday 4th July
Civcon Water Services Mick Adams - Managing Director, Bruce Johnstone - Service supervisor and Norm Campbell - Wastewater product manager, arrived on the Island, to oversee the installation and commission the Fuji Clean PCN10 and CE6000 wastewater treatment systems. The excavated hole for the PCN10 was checked and laser levelled base, in preparation for the system installation tomorrow.
Saturday 5th July
All systems are go, the Island crane was booked and arrived onsite an approximately 8.30am, Ned's Beach Rd was closed off to local traffic. Crane was set up, ready for lift of the Fuji PCN10, lifting straps secured to the Fuji and lift commenced, due to the location of the Fuji system the lift had to go above a cluster of native vegetation, mainly adult Kentia palms, and then carefully thread through the vegetation into the excavated hole below for the Fuji system to locate. Once the Fuji system was in place, a lift of the 5000lt irrigation pump well took place again without any problems, by 9.30am lift was complete, and crane packed up and removed from site and road was reopened. Water was ran into the Fuji system, carefully distributed across all compartments, for even distribution over the next 6 hours to fill to operating levels approximately 12,000 litres.
Fuji Clean PCN10 Installation
Sunday 6th July
Civcon staff, started the installation of the Fuji PCN10 control panel, which entailed installing on a level base 4 x concrete step bases each 900mm x 450mm double stacked, to create a stable base to fit the Air blower panel housing, with the Fuji control panel mounted on top. Air lines were ran from the control panel to the 4 points on the PCN10 four x 40mm PVC pipe was used as per the specifications. After lunch on Sunday, backfilling was able to be started to fill around the Fuji system and pump well, due to the very limited space and vegetation, backfilling will take a few days to complete, as a fair bit of manual shovelling will be involved.
Whilst all this was taking place the local equipment supplier, all island services, owner Dar was hammering out the old concrete system behind the Frangipani rooms, this took a total of almost three days to break up the old concrete tank. The Excavator than was able to start excavation for the Fuji CE6000 system to be installed
Fuji PCN10 control panel
Monday 7th July
Raining heavy up till 10am, weather cleared, the electrician was able to connect power to the Fuji PCN10 and the adjacent Irrigation pump well. The local Plumber Josh arrived and connected the Sewer pipe to the inlet of the Fuji system, Fuji was than powered up, and commissioning process started. Meanwhile excavation was continuing on the old system at the back of the property.
Tuesday 8th July
Excavation completed for the Fuji CE6000 and Irrigation pump well, Excavated hole was levelled with assistance of a laser level, and CE6000 was lifted into the prepared hole and installed. Back filling around the Fuji PCN10 was continuing. All control panels installed at all the locations for the pump wells and grinder pumps, electrician to connect power to all. New Vent pipes installed on Fuji P
CN10, this is a new addition to this system, allows any build-up of gases to be vented to outside of system.
Fuji Clean CE6000 and irrigation well
Wednesday 9th July
Continuing to commission Fuji PCN10, process takes a while to set flow rates etc. doing connections for CE6000 out the back and set up Irrigation pump well with pump and floats. Helping Cameron layout 50mm Poly pipe for supply from Laundry Pump well to PCN10, still backfilling around systems, had a lot of hand shovelling due to limited access for machinery. Installed the control panels for the Sarong, Main House, Laundry so the electrician could connect power supply to each.
Fuji Clean CE6000 & Control panel
Thursday 10th July
Double check everything is operating, as per the plan, check flow rates through PCN10 and adjusted to suit, general tidy up around installed systems.
Back filling will need to be completed at a later time, as limited material is available at this time.
Friday 11th July
Civcon staff returned to Port Macquarie via Easten Air services and drove back to Civcon's base at Heatherbrae.
Over the next few weeks Irrigation was completed on Lord Howe by K and Somerset was ready for re-opening of operations by start of August as per the plan.
