Funding Win for Coliban Water and Central Highlands Water – Water Resilience Infrastructure Upgrade

What We’ve Achieved

Coliban Water has secured $5.1 million through the Commonwealth’s Disaster Ready Fund, enabling a major resilience upgrade for critical water and wastewater infrastructure across central Victoria. The $10.2 million project will remove flood risk at the Eppalock Pump Station and retrofit 10 sewer pump stations in Rochester using an innovative, low cost resilience design.

Grantus supported Coliban Water through a refined, evidence driven submission process. This was the organisation’s second attempt at the Disaster Ready Fund for this project, and together we strengthened the strategic framing, incorporated new modelling, deepened community and cultural evidence, and substantially improved the risk reduction narrative.

Our enhanced approach, going beyond baseline requirements and demonstrating clear disaster mitigation, community benefit and replicability, ensured the proposal was highly competitive and ultimately successful.

Funding Context

The Disaster Ready Fund supports projects that reduce disaster risk, strengthen infrastructure resilience, and protect communities from future climate driven events. This upgrade strongly aligned with DRF priorities by targeting known single points of failure in Victoria’s water network, supported by detailed evidence, flood data, climate projections and collaborative planning with Central Highlands Water and regional emergency partners.

Why It Matters

• Protects water supply reliability for more than 200,000 people across central Victoria.
• Eliminates flood exposure to high voltage and SCADA systems at Eppalock.
• Reduces emergency response, carting and repair costs across future flood events.
• Improves public health and sanitation outcomes in Rochester by reducing sewer overflow risk.
• Provides a replicable resilience model for other regional utilities.

About the Project and Next Steps

The project will relocate the Eppalock Pump Station’s electrical and telemetry systems to a new elevated switch room, delivering long term flood immunity. In Rochester, 10 sewer pump stations will be retrofitted with an innovative raisable plinth system that proved highly effective during post-flood trials.

Early planning, cost modelling and feasibility work are complete. Construction will begin following detailed design, environmental and cultural engagement steps, with delivery staged over four years. The upgrades will reinforce regional preparedness, support safer recovery periods, and protect vulnerable communities and essential service facilities.

Grantus’ Role

• Refining the entire DRF application following a first-round attempt.
• Strengthening the evidence base through enhanced data gathering, updated climate projections and clearer economic justification.
• Demonstrating risk reduction, replicability and alignment with national and state resilience strategies.
• Facilitating partner alignment, particularly with Central Highlands Water, and integrating their contribution into the strategic case.
• Ensuring the proposal exceeded DRF expectations through improved consultation evidence, clearer problem definition and a sharper narrative of community benefit.