In one of Australia’s most remote landscapes, a collaboration between international and local organizations has brought a life-changing improvement to the Mimal Ranger Base in Arnhem Land: clean, reliable water. For the first time, the Indigenous rangers who protect and manage 20,000 square kilometers of diverse ecosystems have access to treated water, thanks to a project partnership between Mimal Land Management, Reece Foundation, and the International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (IWSH) Foundation, IAPMO’s public charity.
During the two-week Community Plumbing Challenge (CPC) in August 2024, plumbing volunteers installed a ring main around the property, located in the remote Northern Territory, to supply treated water to all existing and future on-site dwellings; installed four 27,000-liter rainwater tanks to the side of the workshop, along with a header tank for rainwater above the weed-spraying area; and linked a new borewell to a buffer tank via a water treatment system equipped with a pressure pump. They also conducted educational activities with local schoolchildren and offered hands-on training for staff at the base to ensure the community could sustain and build upon these improvements.
Operated by the Mimal Land Management Aboriginal Corporation, the base serves as a central hub for land management and support services across Central Arnhem Land, spanning thousands of kilometers of diverse landscapes, including rock country, woodlands, and freshwater ecosystems. The base also provides a women’s ranger program, land management education for young people, ceremonial and language programs, and a health clinic, among other services.
The Reece Foundation is an Australian nonprofit organization that works with volunteer tradespeople and partners to fund and initiate projects that provide clean water and sanitation to communities at home and abroad. In addition to securing materials for the project, the Reece Foundation sponsored 13 volunteer trades workers from across Australia to use their skills for the CPC.
Grant Stewart, IWSH international program director, said before the CPC the ranger station used untreated bore water, which has natural minerals and high salt content that calcify plumbing fixtures, washing machines, and the kettles and urns they used to boil water for tea.
“The maintenance for plumbing is just over the top because of that,” Stewart said. “And being remote, it’s hard to maintain things on a regular basis because the focus isn’t on plumbing; it’s on the rangers doing their work.
He added that since the bore water doesn’t taste very good, people typically rely on bottled water, which must be transported to the site and results in plastic waste.
Stewart explained that as the ranger base has taken shape over the past decade, buildings that were initially seen as temporary have become permanent and there was not always a reliable water source. A bore had been installed but not connected to the water source, so volunteers hooked it up to a roughly kilometerlong water main around the site and through a BWT water filtration system that Reece Foundation supplied.
Stewart said they worked with BWT’s industry specialists to come up with a solution that was the best fit for the location, and the resulting system includes an activated charcoal canister followed by a water softener, filter and ozone sterilization.
They received positive feedback about the softer water almost immediately.
“One of the Mimal team sent me an email that said, ‘I’m so happy because when I come back in from projects out in the bush, I have a shower and don’t feel like I’ve got crocodile skin; my skin’s not dried out,’ he recalled.
Now instead of having to routinely replace plumbing fixtures, urns and washing machines that were constantly being worn out and damaged, the rangers will follow a basic maintenance schedule that includes topping off the salt and backwashing a filter.
A custom quick-fill tank system will allow the rangers to efficiently load their spray tanks during firefighting and weed control operations. Stewart said the harder water also negatively impacted the efficacy of the chemical sprays they used for weed control, requiring more chemical because they did not mix as well.
The team also installed a new pump system with a buffer tank, so that if the bore goes down the rangers have about a day’s worth of water in a tank that can be pumped around the site. There is also a switchover to change back to boil water if needed.
“There are some redundancies built into it all,” Stewart said. “There’s also the way it was built into the ground; if there is an issue with the pipework bursting or being dug up, we can isolate a section and the rest of the site can continue pretty much unhindered.”
Another major project was the installation of four 27,000-liter rainwater tanks, which will be filled during the wet season and used solely for drinking water.
Aboriginal narratives and beliefs often shape their relationship with water, with many considering rainwater from the sky as a sacred provision and groundwater as belonging to the earth. Understanding that community and cultural water ethic/ethos, the CPC focused on providing a drinking water source that would be safe and usable for all.
There is also a perception among some communities that groundwater is dirty, partly due to past experiences with failing septic systems. Even though modern water treatment ensures its safety, some people still associate groundwater with contamination, making them less willing to drink it.
“It’s perceived as being dirty, so people don’t like groundwater even though they understand that’s how it has to be for the majority of the water,” he said.
The rainwater system has a first flush water diverter that prevents the first runoff of rainwater from entering the tank, so it will be ready to drink when it is captured.
Stewart said the catchment should fill up within the first couple weeks of the wet season and remain full throughout, and there should still be water in the tanks at the end of the dry season.
“Having a good supply of drinking water on site alleviates the need for bottled water to be brought in for cooking and drinking,” he said. “It fills a lot of gaps, and the development of the site will continue; it’s sort of the springboard into building new buildings on site now.”
The base hosts an annual meeting whose attendance can exceed 100 people, as well as visitors from other ranger bases and Aboriginal areas.
“These activities are all helped by the infrastructure that we’ve installed,” Stewart said. “It gives them more of an opportunity to develop further the capacity of the rangers.”
Stewart is optimistic this is just the start of things to come in Australia. He has continued working with Mimal CEO Dominic Nicholls to plan similar upgrades for other remote ranger outstations, some of which are up to 100 miles away from the base. The hope, he said, is to develop more infrastructure so people can stay at the outstations.
Reflecting on the significance of the project, Stewart emphasized the personal and professional fulfillment it brought him. Having spent decades working on water and sanitation initiatives worldwide, he expressed a deep sense of pride in contributing to a project so close to home.
“I’ve done a lot of work over the past 25 years around the world, and being in my backyard, being able to give back to the First Nations people in Australia, is brilliant,” he said.
