Riverbank support work complete at Torrensville

SA Water, on behalf of the State Government, has completed construction of a bank-stabilising wall along the River Torrens at Torrensville, enabling the City of West Torrens to undertake repairs to its own infrastructure in Linear Park before reopening the cycling and walking path on the southern side of the river.

The area near Hardys Road is the last of six storm-damaged riverbank sites SA Water is helping to repair.

Management of the River Torrens and Linear Park is a joint state and local government responsibility, with SA Water sometimes called on to contribute its construction management and engineering expertise to help repair riverbanks.

SA Water’s General Manager of Asset Operations and Delivery Mark Gobbie said crews have spent nearly every day over the past few months building a nine-layer, 100-metre-long gabion wall at Torrensville, which is made up of specialised steel baskets filled with rocks.

“The gabion wall plays the important function of supporting the riverbank through any future high water events, and our contractor SEM Utilities have pieced it together mostly by hand,” Mark said.

“Before we could even begin building the wall, we undertook extensive planning and design – including geotechnical investigations – and worked with the local council to place adequate fencing and signage around the site to ensure the safety of people travelling in the area.

“Torrensville is the longest and highest section of riverbank we’ve worked on, and located at a sweeping bend of the river also makes it the most complex in terms of design and ease of activity on site.

“With the gabion wall now complete, our crews have begun site remediation along the northern side of the river.

“This involves refilling a temporary channel which was created to redirect water away from our work zone, relocating rocks from the channel to the inside river bend for further erosion protection, and removing construction access tracks.

“This part of the project is expected to take around six weeks to finish, and we will make every effort to minimise any impacts to residents such as dust or noise caused by increased vehicle activity during this time.

“The nearby public walkway on the northern side of the river will continue to remain open while we carry out remediation works.”

SA Water will return to the site in a few months’ time to carry out revegetation just before winter, to give it the best chance of survival. This work – which includes hydroseeding, hydro mulching and planting of native ground cover and grasses – will take just under a month to complete.

“Heavy rainfall and subsequent high flows, as well as a need to adjust our design and construction methods, based on technical challenges identified during works, really put our crews to the test, but they rose to the task and we’re happy the project is now on the home stretch,” Mark said.

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