JOURNAL and.
PROCEEDINGS
of
The Royal Society of
~New South Wales

Volume 144 Parts 1 and 2
Numbers 439-440 2011

_-—s *... for the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art Literature and Philosophy ...”

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

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Hon. Secretary (Ed.)
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OFFICE BEARERS FOR 2011-2012

Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC
Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO Governor of
New South Wales.
Mr John Hardie, BSc (Syd), FGS, MACE
Em. Prof. Heinrich Hora DipPhys Dr.rer.nat DSc FAIP FInstP CPhys
Prof. David Brynn Hibbert BSc PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC RACI
Mr Clive Wilmot
Dr Donald Hector BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD
Dr William Kneprath BSc (MIT) MS (MIT) MSc (Maq) PhD
Mr Anthony Nolan OAM JP MAIPIO FIAPA
Mr Anthony Nolan OAM JP MAIPIO FIAPA
Ms Julie Haeusler BSc (Syd) GradDipEd MRACI CChem
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MICE (Lon) FIEPak FIEAust CPEng
Dr Fred Osman BSc(Hons) PhD (UWS) Grad Dip Ed FACE
MAIP SSAI JP
A/Prof. William Sewell MB BS BSc (Syd) PhD (Melb) FRCPA
Mr Clive Wilmot
Prof. Bruce A. Warren MB BS (Syd) MA DPhil DSc (Oxon) FRCPath
FRSN

Mr Clive Wilmot
A/Prof. Maree Simpson BPharm (UQ) BSc(Hons) (Griffith) PhD (UQ)

EDITORIAL BOARD

Dr Donald Hector BE(Chem) PhD FIChemE FIEAust FAICD

Dr David Branagan MSc PhD (Syd) FGS MAusIMM

Prof. David Brynn Hibbert BSc PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC RACI
Prof. Bruce Warren MB BS (Syd) MA DPhil Oxon FRCPath

Dr Michael Lake BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd)

The Society originated in the year 1821 as the Philosophical Society of Australasia. Its main function is
the promotion of Science by: publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings;
conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liason with other scientific societies.

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and review articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal

and Proceedings.

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Authors are free to re-use their paper in any of their future printed work and can post a copy of the
published paper on their own web site. Enquiries relating to copyright or reproduction of an article should

be directed to the author.

ISSN 0035-9173

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 1-1, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/01001-1

Editorial

DONALD HECTOR
HON. SECRETARY (EDITORIAL)

In my last editorial, I referred to the dis-
advantage suffered by multi-disciplinary pub-
lications such as the Journal and Proceedings
of the Royal Society of NSW and noted that
we are developing a strategy to re-establish
the Journal’s position in learned publishing in
Australia. It is pleasing to note that at the
end of May the Australian Research Council
announced that it to withdraw the Excellence in
Research for Australia (ERA) Ranked Outlets
Indicator and to introduce a Refined Journal
Indicator that does not use prescriptive ranks.
We anticipate that that it will now be less of a
disadvantage for authors to choose to publish
in a multi-disciplinary journal such as ours.
The Society expects that the Journal will be
included in the ERA 2012 Journal List.

Since the last edition was published, the
Council of the Society held a strategic plan-
ning meeting and identified five strategic pro-
grammes that will be the focus for the Council
for the next two years. Key to success of these
programmes are vibrant publications that will
continue to raise the Society’s profile. The
Society’s Act of Incorporation states that it is
“for the encouragement of studies and investiga-
tions in Science Art Literature and Philosophy”.
The original by-laws placed a heavy emphasis
on science and, indeed, many of the Society’s
activities have been focused on science. We aim
to place greater emphasis on the breadth of the
Society’s activities and at the strategic planning

Donald Hector
Hon. Secretary (Editorial)
August 2011

meeting the Council agreed that our role could
best be summed up: “we exist to bring science
to art, literature and philosophy; and to bring
art, literature and philosophy to science”. Thus,
we will be encouraging submission of papers
that recognise the breadth of influence of art,
literature and philosophy on the practice of
science and, conversely, the way in which science
influences art, literature and philosophy.

We are pleased that the Warren Lecture
and Prize has now been formally established by
the Society and that funding for the Prize has
been assured for the next two years. A prize
of $1,000 and two prizes of $500 each for the
runners-up will be awarded based on a paper
submitted for peer review and publication in the
Journal. Entries close on 31°* October 2010 and
the winning papers announced will be presented
early in 2012.

The Society is fortunate to have a an enor-
mous breadth and depth of experience among
its membership. We would be pleased to receive
papers from members covering aspects of their
work that they believe would be of interest to
our broad and extensive readership. In par-
ticular, we believe readers would be interested
to read reviews of our major body of work
produced by an ongoing research programme.
Manuscripts can be submitted electronically
to editor@royalsoc.org.au (information for
authors is available at http://nsw.royalsoc.
org.au/authors.html).

NOV 0.12011
LIBRARIES

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 3-25, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/01003-23

Sydney’s Water Sewerage and Drainage System

DONALD HECTOR

Abstract: This paper traces the development of Sydney’s metropolitan water, sewerage, and
drainage system and considers the underlying arrangements of the institutions responsible for
the construction, operation, and maintenance of the system as the city grew over the last two

centuries or so into a substantial metropolis.

Keywords:
development, institutional arrangements

INTRODUCTION

Broadly speaking, since European settlement
in 1788, there have been four eras of differing
institutional arrangements governing Sydney’s
water system. The first of these was the
progressive development of relatively minor in-
frastructure to provide water for the newly
established township and, as its population
grew over the subsequent fifty years, to address
issues of security of water supply and sanitation.
This work was done under the direction of
the Governor and, later, with advice from the
Governor-appointed Legislative Council. The
second phase began in the 1840s and continued
for about forty years. This was a transitional
period as responsibility for water administration
was progressively transferred from the Gover-
nor to the municipal Council of the newly-
declared City of Sydney and subsequently to
the Legislative Assembly of NSW, established
in 1856. The third phase commenced in 1888
with the appointment of a statutory board
to oversee and manage the water supply and
sewerage systems — this arrangement continued
for about a century. The final era commenced
in the 1970s with major reforms to the statutory
authority and continues to the present day. The
general thrust of the argument presented here is
that these institutional arrangements are both
reflective of and, in part, responsible for the
issues that exist with Sydney’s water system.

THE EARLY ERA —- COLONIAL
GOVERNMENT

At the Royal Commission into Sydney’s water
supply in 1869, Prof. John Smith, the chairman
of the Commission, summarised the history of

water supply, metropolitan water systems, sewerage and drainage, policy

the city’s water supply up to that time (Smith
1869, 94-98). The original choice by Governor
Phillip of the location for the settlement was
made on the basis of having a clean water
supply, so the Sydney Cove site, with its clear
stream, was selected. Unfortunately, plentiful
water was not to be found: Smith quotes an ar-
ticle in the Sydney Gazette (19 October 1811),
which refers to a drought in 1789, the second
year of settlement, during which the colony
nearly ran out of water. The Governor ordered
that three tanks be cut into the sandstone
banks of the stream, near where Hunter and
Pitt Streets now intersect, to hold additional
water for dry times. Although the exact time
of construction is not clear, Smith dated the
tanks (which gave the Tank Stream its name,
Fig. 1) at about 1802. It was not long before
these were becoming polluted and in 1810 orders
were given by the Governor to protect the water
supply. Smith reports a further drought in 1811,
in which the tanks dried up for several weeks.
After a period of relatively wet years, there was
another drought in 1820, and a severe drought
in 1823/24. The reported rainfall in 1823/4
(about 19 inches, 480mm), was less than half
the average.

By the early 1820s, it was becoming appar-
ent that Sydney was subject to a wide variation
in rainfall and that prolonged dry periods might
be common. By then, the population of Sydney
had reached 10,000 and the supply of water was
becoming critically important. By 1826, pollu-
tion of the Tank Stream had become so severe
that it was abandoned as a water supply and
water was carted from Lachlan Swamp (now the
ponds in Centennial Park) to a watering point
in Hyde Park (Smith 1869, 94-98, Aird 1961,
alk),

4 HECTOR

Figure 1: The Tank Stream, Sydney (c 1842) John Skinner Prout; pencil, watercolour, opaque
white highlights, 25.5 x 37.5cm; Purchased 1913; Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Figure 2: Busby’s Bore — Hyde Park, looking towards St James’ Church and the Law Courts.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM

John Busby, appointed as Mineral Surveyor
to the Government, arrived in Sydney in 1824
and proposed cutting a tunnel from Lachlan
Swamp to Hyde Park (Figure 2). Hence,
the first piece of legislation relating to water
supply in Sydney was enacted: The Sydney
Water Supply Act (1833), which approved the
construction and maintenance of Busby’s Bore,
to bring water from Lachlan Swamp to Hyde
Park, with the Tank Stream becoming the de
facto sewer and rainwater drain for the town.
The tunnel was started in 1827 but was not
completed until 1837, however seepage into the
tunnel was able to provide enough drinkable
water for the city from 1830. By the time
Busby’s Bore was completed, the population
of Sydney was over 20,000 and the tunnel was
capable of delivering a barely-adequate 350,000
gallons (1.5 million litres) of water per day.
However, in 1838/39 there was another drought
(referred to in Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle)
and Busby’s Bore was not able to supply enough
water (Aird 1961, pp. 3-11).

Busby’s Bore was in use for many years and
at its peak was capable of delivering 400,000
gallons (1.8 megalitres) per day. There was to
have been a reservoir excavated in Hyde Park
to hold 15 million gallons (68 megalitres) but
it was never built. In the 1838/39 drought,
although Busby’s Bore did not run dry, there
were very serious water shortages, with people
paying 6 pence (5 cents) per bucket for water
during this period.

At this time, the population of Sydney was
growing quickly. Throughout this period, the
institutional arrangements consisted entirely of
direction by the Governor, together with legisla-
tion enacted by the Legislative Council. There
were two pressures which led to a change in
these arrangements. First, was the Colonial
Office in London seeking ways to reduce cost
and to move the administrative responsibility to
the local residents and second, was a growing
discontent from within the colony demanding
a greater urgency in responding to problems
of water supply and sanitation (Clark 1978, p.
55). This led to the declaration of Sydney as
a city in 1843 (Richards 1883) and a municipal
council was established as the corporate body

ON

for its administration (Clark 1978, 55). The
primary responsibility of this council was to
provide water to the rapidly growing city.

THE ERA OF TRANSITION —
FROM COLONIAL
ADMINISTRATION TO
SELF-ADMINISTRATION

Following the 1838/39 dry spell, there was a
wet period of about nine years, during which
there was frequent flooding, again followed by
a dry year in 1849 (the rainfall at South Head
was only 21.5 inches (550mm), compared to an
average of about 50 inches (1,270mm)). By the
early 1840s, it had become clear that Lachlan
Swamps and Busby’s Bore were not capable
of delivering adequate water to the city and
in 1849, there was a proposal to build two
small dams holding about 10 million gallons (45
megalitres) in the area of the Lachlan Swamp
but this work was not commenced. In 1850,
a Special Committee was appointed by the
Municipal Council of Sydney ‘to inquire into
and report on the best means of procuring a per-
manent supply of water to the city of Sydney’.
The committee considered areas around Bun-
nerong, Cook’s River, George’s River, and the
Nepean River, however before the committee
could report, a new Governor, Charles Fitzroy,
was commissioned and he appointed a board
to re-examine the question. The board made
recommendations relating to the development
of Botany Swamps and these were implemented.
The first step was the installation of a steam
pump in 1854 (Smith 1869, 94-98, Aird 1961,
3-11) (Figure 3).

The board recommended confining activities
to the Lachlan Swamp area, pumping water to
a new reservoir to be built at Paddington, with
a capacity of 12 million gallons (55 megalitres)
which was about 40 gallons (180 litres) per
head of population. In 1854, a small pump
was installed to transfer water through Busby’s
Bore. In 1858, three 100-horsepower stream-
driven pumps were installed, two of which gen-
erally ran 24 hours a day. A 30-inch (750mm)
main delivered water from the pumping station
at Lord’s dam to a reservoir at Crown Street

6 HECTOR

holding 3.5 million gallons (15.9 million litres)
and another at Paddington holding 1.5 mil-
lion gallons (6.8 megalitres). These reservoirs
contained only two days’ supply. The major
problem with the system was that capacity was
insufficient to accommodate a prolonged dry
period, even with the subsequent construction
in 1866-67 of six small dams down the course
of the stream to Botany Bay. Reticulated water
supply was introduced in 1844, with about 70
houses being connected. The cost of this was 5
shillings per room per year (Aird 1961, 6). The
reticulation network increased significantly in
the 1850s and 1860s, requiring night-time water

“>
7
~~
Ee:

Peck:
po

restrictions to be applied in 1862. In 1868, 956
million gallons (4.34 gigalitres) of water were
pumped or 2.62 million gallons (11.9 million
litres) per day and by 1874 this had increased to
4 million gallons (18.2 megalitres) per day. To
accommodate this growth, a further dam was
built at Bunnerong 1876-77. At the time of
completion of the first stage of this scheme in
1858, the population of Sydney was estimated
to be about 87,000 people. When the Smith
Royal Commission (referred to above) reported
in 1869, the population had grown to about

118,000 (Smith 1869, 98).

Figure 3: Archival etching of steam pumping station at Lachlan Swamp
(c1854). Copy held at Sydney Water archive, drawing by T.S. Gill, Mitchell
Library. and Dixson Library and Galleries, State Library of NSW.

Figure 4: Botany pumping station (c18707).

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM f

At the Royal Commission hearing on 31
March 1868, Thomas Woore read a paper
proposing the construction of a dam on the
Warragamba River. The dam wall would be
600 feet (182m) along the top and about 170
feet (52m) above the floor of the gorge. The
wall would have been masonry, supported down-
stream with rubble and with puddling materials
in front of the dam wall. Gravity feed of water
to Sydney would allow three years’ supply. The
president of the Royal Commission, Professor
Smith, reluctantly rejected the proposal on the
basis that the Warragamba dam would have
been the largest dam in the world and he was
concerned by experience with smaller dams in
England which had failed and had ‘spread dev-
astation in their course’. The risk of economic
loss was considered too great, despite that ‘if
successful, the results would be magnificent,
and the work would be a monument of engi-
neering skills and boldness that could not fail to
command a world-wide fame’. Professor Smith
added that although he later became aware of
a dam in the Upper Loire in France nearly as
great, the risk of flood at the Warragamba site
during construction would also be substantial
(Woore 1869). This Royal Commission and the
subsequent report of an expert engineer from
Britain, William Clark, appointed to confirm
the recommendations of the Royal Commission
in 1877, set the direction for the next eighty
years for development of the Upper Nepean as
Sydney’s water supply.

Clark evaluated the Royal Commission re-
port and other submissions received in the
meantime. These were schemes for the Up-
per Nepean, Loddon and Wingecarribee, Port
Hacking, the Lower Nepean, the Warragamba,
the Grose, George’s River, Port Hacking and
Woronora, Erskine Valley, Tube Wells, and ‘Mr
Sadler’s Proposal’. He eliminated all except
four, these being the Upper Nepean gravita-
tion scheme, the Loddon and Wingecarribee
gravitation scheme, the Lower Nepean pump-
ing scheme and the George’s River pumping
scheme. In his conclusion, Clark discussed
costs, the risk of flooding during construction,
operating cost, complexity of construction (in-

cluding tunnels, pipework etc), long-term stor-
age capacity, and the opportunity for future de-
velopment for irrigation, pastoral activities and
manufacturing. Clark’s recommendation was to
develop the Upper Nepean scheme (Clark 1877,
1-42). The Upper Nepean scheme consisted
of building a small dam, 10 feet (83m) high,
on the Nepean River near Pheasants Nest. A
tunnel 41/2 miles (7.2km) long carried water
to the confluence of the Cataract, Nepean and
Cordeaux rivers. Another small dam would
be built on the Cataract River at Broughton’s
pass and a tunnel 1 !/4 miles (2km) long, which
would take the water to the western slope of the
George’s River basin. A system of channels and
short tunnels would then deliver the water to
a reservoir to be built at Prospect. Prospect
reservoir would have a wall height of 80 feet
(24m), and would hold 10,635 million gallons
(48.3 gigalitres), of which 7,110 million gallons
(32.3 gigalitres) would be available for supply
by gravitation. From Prospect, the water would
be distributed to the existing reservoirs, and a
new distribution reservoir at Petersham (Clark
187, 1-42),

Clark confirmed the Royal Commission’s
recommendation of the construction of Prospect
Reservoir, and in addition, recommended con-
struction of further reservoirs (complementing
the Crown Street and Paddington reservoirs) at
Petersham, Newtown, Woollahra and Waverley.
He also recommended design principles for retic-
ulation of water through the suburbs, the use
of ball-cocks to connect the mains, the fitting of
stop-cocks and meters, a system of rating which
differentiated between properties with gravity
feed and those requiring pumping and further
recommendations from his experience regarding
the setting of water rates.

The first water from the Upper Nepean
scheme was delivered in 1886 and the Botany
Swamps pumping system was decommissioned
and, in 1896, was dismantled. The Botany
Swamps dams remained largely intact until they
were badly damaged by heavy rainfall in 1931.
At its peak in 1886, its annual delivery was
1,864 million gallons (8.4 gigalitres) (Aird 1961,
po, Di 14).

, HECTOR

In the early 1850s, there was considerable
disquiet on the state of the sanitation of Sydney.
In 1851, the Sydney Morning Herald published
a series of ten articles describing the inadequacy
of the water supply and the unsanitary drainage
and sewerage conditions of the city (Clark 1978,
51). The catchment around Sydney, consisting
of a number of small creeks had become open
sewers and little had been done by the municipal
Council to solve the problem. In January 1854,
the Legislative Council passed an act which dis-
solved the municipal Council, appointed three
commissioners to administer the Council and, in
particular to authorise the raising of a £ 200,000
loan to commence construction of the sewerage
scheme. By the end of 1854, the Legislative
Council, impatient with the lack of progress,
appointed a select committee to investigate the
matter. The result was the commencement of
five sewers along the creek-lines draining into
Sydney Harbour. In addition, minor sewers
from a number of city streets were also planned,
feeding either into the five main sewers or
discharging directly into the harbour (Henry
1939, 56-157). By 1877, 33 miles (53km)
of sewers had been constructed servicing the
Woolloomooloo and Fort Macquarie areas, and
the area drained by the Tank Stream.

Nonetheless, by the 1870s, there was a sub-
stantial pollution problem in the bays of Sydney
Harbour into which all the sewers discharged.
The Sewerage and Health Board was appointed
by the government in 1873 and included two en-
gineers, E.O. Moriarty and W.C. Bennett, both
of whom had worked on the Nepean scheme. In
1887, the board proposed construction of two
much larger sewerage schemes, the ‘northern
system’ which would service what is now central
Sydney and the eastern suburbs, discharging
into the ocean at Bondi; and the ‘southern sys-
tem’, servicing the area from Redfern, Waterloo
and Mascot, discharging at the mouth of the
Cook’s River in Botany Bay. These designs were
approved by William Clark, the English civil
engineer appointed to review the 1869 Royal
Commission findings. Construction commenced
in 1880 and was completed in 1889, with re-
sponsibility for its operation being transferred
to the newly-established Board of Water Supply

and Sewerage (referred to simply as the Water
Board) in 1890.

There was a critical water shortage in the
early 1880s, with only ten days’ water supply
being stored. The construction of the Upper Ne-
pean scheme had been started and the Hudson
Brothers (the founders of Clyde Engineering)
were appointed to build a system of timber-
and-iron pipes and viaducts to supplement the
Botany Swamps water supply (Figure 5). It
was this system (referred to as the Hudson’s
Temporary Scheme) which, in 1886, delivered
the first water from the Upper Nepean scheme
to the reticulation system (Aird 1961, 3-11).
‘Two years later, in 1888, the Water Board held
its first meeting (Clark 1978).

Institutional Arrangements

There are a number of important aspects of this
transition in institutional arrangements during
this period. The declaration of Sydney as a
city and the appointment of the Sydney City
Council, together with the later establishment
of the Legislative Assembly shifted the primary
responsibility for administering the affairs of
Sydney from the Colonial Office in London
and the Governor to the citizens of NSW.
Furthermore, professional engineers started to
become more conspicuous in management of the
issues. These engineers, many of whom had
military as well as civil engineering backgrounds
(these being the only truly distinct areas of
practice within the engineering profession at
the time) assumed leadership roles in these
activities. This transitional period was by no
means smooth. The early councillors were
accused of self-aggrandisement, making their
first priority the building of a Town Hall, rather
than directing their limited resources toward
social improvements. There were allegations
of ineptitude and financial mismanagement and
these were substantiated by a committee of
enquiry held in 1849. Further public campaigns,
including newspaper articles and petitions from
local merchants and manufacturers led to the
appointment of a further committee of enquiry
by the Legislative Council in 1852, resulting
in the dismissal of the Council and the ap-
pointment of a three-man Commission to ad-

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM 9

minister the affairs of the city. The optimism
within the community on the appointment of
the Commission was short-lived: efforts to raise
capital through a debenture issue were largely
unsuccessful and the engineer-in-charge of the
Botany Swamps project was replaced due to
incompetence. It seems that incompetence
was not confined to the project engineer, with
three separate select committees recommending
dismissal of the board of Commissioners, re-

sulting in council administration being restored
in 1857. Also, there were concerns regarding
public health issues, in particular the use of
lead piping for drinking water distribution, the
slowness of extending the reticulation network
and the rising rate of water-borne disease in
areas that had not yet received reticulated
supplies. Further enquiries were conducted in
the early 1860s, culminating in the Smith Royal
Commission of 1868/69.

Figure 5: Hudson’s Temporary Scheme.

10 HECTOR

This Royal Commission, referred to earlier,
was one of the most important landmarks in
the history of the institutions responsible for the
development Sydney’s water system. Not only
did it initiate the proposals which influenced de-
velop of the water system for the next century or
more but also it was the primary stimulus that
brought about significant institutional change.
The commission was chaired by John Smith,
the ‘Professor of Physics etc’, at the embry-
onic University of Sydney and its membership
included three civil engineers and the Surveyor-
General. The Commission sought evidence from
a wide range of participants and recommended
the commencement of capital works on the
Upper Nepean, a reticulation system using a
new reservoir at Prospect, with reticulation to
small reservoirs in the municipalities, and a
rating structure which would cover the interest
and maintenance of capital investment (Smith
1869, 33, 43).

However, despite the clarity of the Royal
Commission’s recommendations, the political
process delayed commencement. Political par-
ties had not yet become established and there
were frequent changes of ministries. The find-
ings of the Royal Commission and the alter-
natives it had investigated were extensively
debated. There were further public debates
and enquiries, including the expert report by
Clark in 1877. The influence of the three
engineers on the original Royal Commission
was still significant and its recommendations
regarding water supply were largely confirmed.
In addition, the metering and rating of water
was also supported and it recommended the
construction of a major sewerage system to
divert outflows from Sydney Harbour to the Pa-
cific ocean (Clark 1877, 1-42). But the admin-
istrative arrangements were still being debated,
some favouring private ownership, while others
argued for a government-owned or government-
guaranteed water company.

Finally, it was agreed to establish a statu-
tory board representing the affected municipal-
ities together with a group of appointed expert
members. This resulted in an act of Parliament
in 1880, enabling the appointment of the Board

of Water Supply and Sewerage (later generally
known as the Water Board), but it was not the
late 1880s, upon the completion of the upper
Nepean scheme, that the board was formally
appointed and held its first meeting (Clark
LBiAG MaDe

Clark (1978) makes some interesting obser-
vations regarding this transitional period in ad-
ministration. Until about 1860, there was only a
limited mechanism for raising public finance and
this constrained the development of Sydney’s
infrastructure. However, the development of
water and sanitation infrastructure seems to
have lagged other areas (such as railways) that
enjoyed significant development at that time. It
appeared that an one hand, the colonial gov-
ernment did not want to take responsibility for
developing and administering the infrastructure
but, on the other, it was reluctant to devolve the
authority to local government. It was only when
water shortages and the threat of serious disease
reached crisis point that action was taken. But
there is a different interpretation which may
be placed on this set of events. The situation
in Sydney was not particularly different from
other colonial cities, nor indeed, cities in Britain
itself. Sanitation was not well understood (the
miasmic theory of disease had not yet been
replaced by Pasteur’s ground-breaking work,
first proposed in the 1870s) and water supplies
were not reliable. To understand this more fully,
it is illuminating to consider the same period in
Britain, not least because at the time Britain
still had full authority for the administration of
the colony of NSW.

By the early 19th century, the industrial
revolution in Britain was well underway. There
had been a major migration from the coun-
tryside to the growing industrial cities. As
the population of these industrial metropolises
grew, sanitation became a major problem and
there were outbreaks of diseases such as cholera
and typhoid with growing frequency and social
impact. At the time, the prevailing miasmic
theory was that disease was caused by the foul
smell emanating from open drains and marshes
— that is, the smell was actually the disease
itself, rather than its by-product.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM ila)

Pasteur’s work on the origins of disease
was published in 1878, yet it was not until
the end of the century that his theory was
widely accepted in the administration of public
health. Nonetheless, notable figures such as
Edwin Chadwick drew a correct conclusion from
an incorrect theory: that the solution to public
health required reform of the water supply and
sewerage system. Chadwick’s work was focused
on London and identified the problem with the
sewerage system as being mainly an engineering
one but with substantial administrative defects,
whereas water supply was largely an adminis-
trative problem due to a lack of cooperation
between the water supply companies. The
solution he identified was to consolidate the
sewers commissions and water companies into
one organisation and to construct a new design
of ovoid, pressurised drains which would be
flushed by water, thus removing the miasma
from the streets.

One consequence of Chadwick’s work was
an act of Parliament, the Public Health Act
(1848), which established General Boards of
Health, to reform the administration of sanitary
systems. But within London, Chadwick’s re-
forms were largely unsuccessful, being opposed
in Parliament and generally not supported in
the community. A major outbreak of cholera in
the late 1840s prompted Chadwick to produce
another report in 1850 (On the Supply of Water
to the Metropolis). This was influential in
the eventual disbanding of the London Board
of Health in 1854 and the creation of the
Metropolitan Board of Works in 1855. The
formation of the Metropolitan Board of Works
partly consolidated the highly fragmented re-
sponsibility for water, sewerage, and drainage
and to undertake the major engineering works
required for a substantial water, sewerage, and
drainage system.

Further consolidation of responsibility took
place in 1888, when the Metropolitan Board
of Works was replaced by the London County
Council. This organisation remained in place
until 1965 when it was abolished and the re-
sponsibility of its successor, the Greater London
Council, was extended considerably to accom-
modate the growth in London over the previous

80 years. (Boyne and Cole 1998, Schwartz 1966,
Parkin 2000, Wheeler 2000).

The point of this comparison is this: Sydney
was by no means unique in struggling with
the problems associated with its rapid growth
in population. There were two fundamental
problems identified in this era that were a
consequence of rapid urbanisation. One was
the technological challenge in dealing with the
provision of a clean water supply and the sani-
tation issues of densely populated urban areas.
The other was the challenge of moving from
directive to participative public administration,
in response not only to social demands for
greater representation but also the recognition
that the increasingly complex nature of large
urban areas required it.

The general solution to this problem was
to establish two government instrumentalities:
a public works body to develop the capital
infrastructure; and an administrative body, to
be governed by elected representatives of the
municipalities serviced by the infrastructure.
In the case of London, the public works body
was set up in 1855 and a joint engineering
and administrative authority established with
the creation of the London County Council in
1888. In the case of Sydney, the administrative
authority was established with the appointment
of the Water Board in 1888 and the Department
of Public Works retained responsibility for ma-
jor capital projects until 1924. Although the
structural arrangements established in London
and Sydney were slightly different, the response
to the problem was fundamentally the same:
creation of a body with a strong technological
capability to carrying out the necessary civil
engineering work and administrative authority
representative of the local government con-
stituencies to provide services to rate-payers.

In both cases, these arrangements remained
in place for the better part of a century. Over
this period, both cities saw dramatic improve-
ment in standards of public health, with dis-
eases such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery, tuber-
culosis, diphtheria and even, on rare occasions,
bubonic plague being largely eliminated. In
the case of Sydney, although there is no doubt
that at times progress was frustratingly slow,

12 HECTOR

the institutional reform which took place over
the period from 1840 to 1890 had a profound
and long-lasting beneficial impact on the de-
velopment of the city and the well-being of
its citizens. At the heart of these reforms,
there emerged a paradigm that recognised the
reliance of society on the engineering profession
to create and implement technologically sound
solutions, with oversight and administration by
a body representative of the local government
constituencies. But, in the case of Sydney at
least, it would be quite misleading to suggest
that these institutional arrangements were par-
ticularly efficient. As will be discussed below,
there were continuing criticisms of the effective-
ness of the Water Board and its structure was
changed on several occasions, largely as a result
of enquiries provoked by public dissatisfaction.

THE WATER BOARD ERA - 1888
TO 1983

In the latter part of the 19th century there had
been considerable debate on the merits of ‘wet
carriage’ versus ‘dry conservancy’ treatment of
sewage (Trevor Jones 1886, Ashburton Thomp-
son 1892). Both technologies were tried. In
the period from 1855 to 1875, virtually all of
Sydney sewage discharged into Sydney Harbour
via the sewers built in the 1850s and 1860s.
Water quality in Sydney Harbour worsened
and in 1875, following the outbreak of typhoid
mentioned above, the petition presented to Par-
liament and further agitation over the next two
years resulted in the Sewerage and Health Board
committing to the construction of two outfalls,
the Northern System, discharging into the ocean
at Bondi, and the Southern System, running to
a sewerage farm at Botany Bay (Beder 1989,
369-376).

The Northern System was completed and
handed over to the Water Board in 1889 and
the Southern System was completed and handed
over in 1890. But by 1890, the Secretary for
Public Works, the Hon. Bruce Smith was so
concerned about deteriorating public health in
Sydney due to much of the city’s sewage con-
tinuing to be discharged into open drains, that

he proposed a separate stormwater drainage
system to be built as well as the sewerage
system. Expansion plans for the Northern
(now called the Bondi system) and Southern
sewerage systems had been developed and were
under construction, but the western suburbs
were developing so quickly that construction
of the sewers could not keep up with the rate
of urban development. Smith believed that
stormwater drainage could be built far more
quickly than sewerage. At the time, the Nepean
scheme (with a draft of 50 million gallons (227
megalitres) per day) had been completed and
the distribution infrastructure was capable of
delivering 18 million gallons (82 megalitres) per
day, nearly double the normal consumption of
about 10 million gallons (45 megalitres) per day.
Smith proposed that it would be possible to
quickly build a network of stormwater drains
that could be flushed using the excess water ca-
pacity from the Nepean system and which local
municipalities could use temporarily as sewers
(Beder 1990). Once the sewerage system was
complete, sewer inlets would be disconnected
and the stormwater drains would revert to their
intended purpose.

By 1897, nine major stormwater drains had
been constructed in Wentworth Park, Rushcut-
ters’ Bay, Balmain, Erskineville, Long Cove,
Iron Cove, Homebush, and North Sydney. Ac-
cording to the medical adviser to the Board,
there was a dramatic reduction in disease:
mortality from diarrhoea dropped from 10.9 to
6.2 per 10,000, diphtheria from 5.2 to 3.1 per
10,000 and phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis)
from 16.8 to 9.5 per 10,000 population. There
had been a major problem with typhoid (which
had been exacerbated during the construction of
the drainage system due to the manual excava-
tion of the existing open drains) in the inner-city
area, but after the completion of the stormwater
drains, mortality from typhoid in the Ersk-
ineville, Redfern and Waterloo districts had
dropped by as much as two-thirds (Aird 1961,
201-203). This resulted in Sydney ultimately
having separate stormwater and sewerage sys-
tems which continues today but, importantly,
it established wet carriage as the technology of
choice for the transport and disposal of sewage.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM ie

By the early 20th century, the area around
the sewage farm at Botany Bay was becoming
more densely populated and there was growing
public concern about its health impact, result-
ing in legal action by local residents. In 1905, a
recommendation was made to cease farming and
to treat the sewage. By this time conversion of
the western suburbs drainage system to a main
sewer was well under way and in 1908, following
a Parliamentary committee of enquiry, it was
decided to construct a sewer from the sewage
farm on the northern side of Botany Bay to
divert both the southern and western systems
to an ocean outfall at Malabar, near Long Bay
(Figure 6). This work was completed in 1916
(Aird 1961, 137-142).

The northern suburbs of Sydney were also
serviced by sewers which drained into Sydney

&

Feehan od niga ae

jmcniietialll

Harbour. The original work was done between
1891 and 1898 by the Public Works Department
and transferred to the Water Board in 1899. By
1910, the pollution problem in Sydney Harbour
from the northern suburbs was extensive and
investigations were undertaken to determine
whether an ocean outfall could be constructed
at North Head. Construction on the North head
outfall commenced in 1916 and in the meantime,
primary the treatment works at Willoughby Bay
were extended. In 1919, legal proceedings were
taken against the Water Board for negligence
and nuisance, resulting in an activated sludge
system being installed together with a system
for the chlorination of efHuent. The North Head
ocean outfall system began operating in 1926
and was fully commissioned in 1928 (Henry
1939, 202, Aird 1961, 154-156).

a

fi
F F.|

ri

Figure 6: Construction of the Southern and Western Ocean Outfall System (c1915).

14 HECTOR

In 1901-2, there was another major drought
which brought Sydney to a most perilous po-
sition and the government appointed a Royal
Commission to determine a solution. The
Commission presented three reports in April
1902; «July 1902). and October .19034peThe
first report recommended a major upgrade of
the distribution infrastructure, in particular
strengthening Prospect Reservoir, upgrading
the canal leading from Prospect to Guildford,
a major upgrade to the Ryde pumping sta-
tion to increase capacity to northern suburbs
and upgrading mains distributing water to the
southern suburbs. The second report identi-
fied sites on the Cataract, Cordeaux, Nepean,
and Avon rivers and recommended that the
catchments for these be proclaimed, that no
further mining and forestry leases be granted,
and that the grazing of livestock within the
catchment be prohibited. In addition, the
Commission recommended a greater emphasis
on conserving water, an increasing proportion
of water which was metered. As a consequence,
acts of Parliament were passed to develop new
major headworks, the first being a dam on the
Cataract River. Construction started in 1903
(Aird 1961, 25-27) (Figure 7).

There was a further sustained dry period
from 1907 until early 1911, prompting the
Water Board to identify another dam site on
the Cordeaux River. This was followed by
several years of good rainfall and the interven-
tion of the First World War, so the problem
was not addressed seriously until 1918, when
a Board of Experts was appointed to advise
on development of Sydney’s water supply. It
recommended the construction of the Cordeaux
dam and to commence planning the Avon and
Nepean dams. Construction of the Cordeaux
dam commenced in 1918 and was completed
in 1926. The Avon dam was commenced in
1921 and was completed in 1928 (Figure 8). In
1925, construction began on the Nepean dam
near Pheasants Nest and, with some disruption
to construction due to the Depression, was
completed in 1935.

In 1926, a committee was appointed to
continue the work of the Special Board of
Experts which had been appointed in 1918.
This committee recommended that construction

of the Warragamba Dam commence after the
Nepean dam was completed, and that the War-
ragamba should be sufficiently advanced that it
could contribute to Sydney’s water supply by
1938. In 1928, the chief engineer, G. Haskins,
recommended that a small dam at Woronora
(originally 60 feet, 18m high) intended to be a
local supply for the Sutherland-Cronulla district
be increased in height to 200 feet (61m), giving
it a capacity of 15,000 million gallons (68.1
gigalitres). This would enable deferment of the
Warragamba Dam by four years. The Woronora
dam was commenced in 1930 (construction was
suspended for several years during the Depres-
sion) and was completed in 1941 (Henry 1939,
140, Aird 1961, 88-94).

In 1934, a severe drought began. Until 1940,
the worst dry period on record had been the
drought of 1904-1910 and it was thought that
the capacity of Sydney for supply should be
adequate to cover such a period. It became clear
the upper Nepean system was inadequate and,
as an emergency measure, a weir 50 feet (15.2 m)
high was commenced near the site of the current
Warragamba Dam and was completed in 1940.

The 1934-42 drought, (at the time of writing
this paper, the longest on record) has been used
as the basis for water supply calculations ever
since (Aird 1961, 3-11). Prior to the completion
of the Warragamba dam the ‘safe draft’ of the
combined Cataract, Cordeaux, Avon, Nepean,
and Woronora dams was 92 million gallons
(418 megalitres) per day. In 1959-60, Sydney’s
daily demand was 201.8 million gallons (916
megalitres). The projected shortfall in capacity
had necessitated construction of a very large
dam, justifying the size of Warragamba.

The original design of Warragamba Dam
was for a wall 370 feet (112m) high, with
a capacity of 452,500 million gallons (2,054.4
gigalitres). On completion, based on a nine-
year drought, Warragamba had a regulated
draft of 274 million gallons (1,244 megalitres)
a day. At the time, the daily draft of the entire
Sydney system was 310 million gallons (1,407
megalitres) a day. Site survey and selection
commenced in 1941 and was completed in 1946.
Construction was completed in 1960 (Aird 1961,
105-111).

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM

5)

ft

Figure 7: Cataract Dam under construction (c190

Figure 8: A diver entering the water at the Avon coffer dam.

16

HECTOR

RAI
”

> ASaIn

ZZ

Sms a ta A,
by Ty foe
+
=

a
Ch oP

‘
is
a
&
as
Pat
=.

Figure 9: Warragamba Dam under construction. The photo shows No. 2 Cross Connection.
Looking south at the cross pipe showing Mk. 26 under the crane. Partly constructed 84
inch valve chamber in foreground.

Figure 10: Warragamba Dam main wall construction.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM 17

VAR .
a

AX

Figure 11: Warragamba Dam nears completion.

In 1966, the Water Board appointed
the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Authority
(SMEH) to evaluate the Sydney and south coast
water supply with water beyond the end of
the 20th century. SMEH examined all major
catchments feasible for supplying the region
with water, rejecting the Wollondilly and Grose
catchments because of lack of capacity and
rejecting development of the Colo River catch-
ment because of both the relatively high cost of
building a dam (due to the thickness of silt on
the river bed) and concerns about interrupting
freshwater flow into the Hawkesbury River and
the consequent effect on salinity. The scheme
recommended was the Welcome Reef dam with
a dam wall 200 feet (61m) high, a capacity
of 330,000 million gallons (1,498 gigalitres)
and associated developments on the Shoalhaven
River. An additional dam, with about the same
capacity as Welcome Reef, could ultimately be
built on the Shoalhaven River, near the junction
with Yalwal Creek. Adoption of the scheme was
published in the Sydney Water Board Journal

in October 1968. A number of environmental
and archaeological studies were done in the
1970s, recommending that the project proceed
with consultation with local communities, tak-
ing steps to ensure protection of local ecology.
However, for a variety of reasons discussed in
the next section, other than the construction of
a small dam in the Shoalhaven Valley at Tallowa
completed in 1976, the project did not proceed.

Meanwhile, there had been extensive devel-
opment of sewerage and drainage infrastructure
as both the population and the service area
had grown quickly in the first half of the 20th
century. In the period from 1924 to 1936,
extensive work was done to determine options
for dealing with the increasing population in
the southern and western suburbs and in 1936
work commenced on duplicating the sewerage
main to Malabar and the installation of primary
treatment works at all ocean outfalls. This
work was completed in 1941 and, in addition,
extensive work was done on sub-mains feeding
the southern and western systems.

18 HECTOR

In the period between 1934 and 1960, 878
miles (1,411km) of sewerage were installed in
the southern and western systems (Aird 1961,
148-153) and a further 877 miles (1,413 km)
were constructed to service the northern sub-
urbs (Aird 1961, 167). By the 1980s, there was
general concern about the level of pollution on
Sydney’s beaches from the three ocean outfall
systems, with beaches regularly being closed
to bathers. This resulted in the decision to

extend the ocean outfalls at North Head, Bondi,
and Malabar so that effluent was discharged
several kilometres offshore. Construction on
this started in 1984 (Beazley 1988, 219). In
addition, a number of smaller systems at Par-
ramatta, Hornsby, Manly, Vaucluse, and Rand-
wick constructed in the first half of the 20th
century were integrated into the ocean outfall
system.

Figure 12: Bondi Sewerage Treatment Works under construction in 1984.

Institutional Arrangements

The main enabling legislation for the appoint-
ment of the Board of Water Supply and Sewer-
age (the Water Board) was passed in 1880 and a
supplementary act was passed in 1888 just prior
to the Board’s appointment and first meeting.
The intention was that the Board would take
over the control and management of the cap-
ital works built by the government, removing
responsibility from the Municipal Council of the
City of Sydney. Responsibility for construction
of capital works was to remain with the Minister
for Works but, practically, the Water Board

was granted ministerial approval to carry out
smaller projects such as reservoirs, pumping
stations and mains, with larger infrastructure
being built by the Public Works Department. In
1924, in the wake of growing public dissatisfac-
tion with the reliability of the water supply and
frustration at the ‘dual control’ system for con-
struction, an act was passed which consolidated
responsibility for construction and operation for
all water, sewerage, and drainage works with
the Board. Also at this time it was granted
complete control of its own finances. (Aird
1961, 215-219, Henry 1939, 2-3).

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM 19

The original constitution of the Water Board
provided for the Governor to appoint three
‘Official Members’, one of whom would be the
President, for the Municipal Council the City
of Sydney to elect two ‘City Members’, and for
councils of a number of municipalities within the
county of Cumberland a further two ‘Suburban
Members’. A rotation arrangement provided for
three members to retire every two years. The
original intention of the structure was to have
official members with technical training and for
elected members to represent two constituencies
of roughly equal size, the City of Sydney and the
other metropolitan municipalities (Aird 1961,
214-219). The 1924 act, mentioned above,
increased the size of the Board to 18 members (a
President appointed by the Governor for a five-
year term and 17 elected members elected from
municipal councils within nine constituencies of
metropolitan Sydney — two for each of eight
constituencies and a ninth constituency with
one member). This structure was soon found
to be unwieldy, with the need for standing
orders to be introduced to control length of
meetings, factionalisation, and conflicting ad-
vice regarding policy. At this time there were
problems with construction works and a Royal
Commission was appointed to investigate. It
recommended a change to the structure of the
board and, after some parliamentary debate,
in 1935, a further act was passed reducing
the size of the Board to seven members: a
President and Vice-President appointed by the
Governor and five members elected from five
larger constituencies, representing groupings of
the metropolitan municipal councils (Aird 1961,
220-222, Henry 1939, 9-14).

In 1972, there were concerns that the struc-
ture of the Board had become ineffectual and
the act was changed to bring the board under
the direct control of the Minister. The new
Board consisted of five members appointed by
the Minister and a further three selected by
the Minister from a panel nominated by the
Local Government Association (Beazley 1988,
209-210).

This period, which had lasted for the best
part of a century, could reasonably be described
as the era of the engineer. Many of the
presidents, official members of the Board and
a significant number of the elected aldermen
were engineers (Aird 1961, 309-321). The
Water Board became known as an engineer-
ing organisation (Beazley 1988, 172-173) and
developed a strong, internal culture. Despite
public criticism of the performance of the Water
Board and the Department of Public Works
(from 1888 to 1925), in the period from 1888
to 1960, notwithstanding the major disruptions
of the First World War, the Great Depression,
and the Second World War, the development of
Sydney’s water system was very extensive. Ten
major dams were constructed, with a storage
capacity of over 400 million gallons (over 1,800
gigalitres) — Warragamba dam being one of
the largest metropolitan dams in the world.
One hundred and twenty nine service reser-
voirs were built and over 6,400 miles (10,300
km) of water mains were laid. Over 4,000
miles (6,400 km) of sewers were constructed and
nearly 180 miles (290km) of stormwater canals
were built in areas subject to flooding (Aird
1961, 263, 309, 207). But the 1970s, the water
board’s unique culture (described extensively in
Beazley’s history of the Water Board (Beazley
1988) was seen to be increasingly out of touch
with community expectations. Practices and
work habits that had evolved over a century
were either no longer relevant or reflected com-
placency, corruption, and inefficiency that was
unacceptable. Public dissatisfaction with Water
Board culture, politicisation of the issues, and
a change in expectations which took place in
Australia across many public institutions during
this period had a profound effect on the Water
Board. From the late 1970s to the present day,
the Water Board as an engineering institution
was gradually dismantled and replaced by a
quasi-corporate structure. This major institu-
tional change — which is still taking place — will
be considered in the next section.

20 HECTOR

THE RECENT ERA —- POST 1972

Following approval of the construction of the
first two stages of the Welcome Reef system
in 1968, Stage 1, Tallowa dam and a system
of pumping stations, reservoirs and canals to
transfer water from the Shoalhaven Valley to
the Nepean system was completed in 1977. It
has relatively small capacity (90 gigalitres) and
has been used to transfer water to the Nepean
system in times of low rainfall. A further study
was commissioned by the Water Board in 1974
to study the environmental effects of the second
stage of the system, the construction of the Wel-
come Reef dam itself. The study was completed
by Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation
(SMEC) and Gutteridge, Haskins and Davey
(GHD), two large consulting engineering firms.
The study, completed in 1978 and explored
environmental, social, and ecological impacts of
constructing the dam. This report confirmed
the findings of the original 1968 study that
recommended construction of two large dams
on the Shoalhaven River system and proposed
that construction should be commenced in 1986
with completion in 2000 (Seebohm 2000).
There were further investigations into the
dam proposal in the period from 1982 to 1993.
Two studies investigated aboriginal archaeolog-
ical sites in the inundation area, the second
of these recommending that archaeological sites
be excavated and aboriginal artefacts collected
(Seebohm 2000). In the late 1980s, SMEC and
Sinclair Knight & Partners were commissioned
to examine the water supply strategy, tabling
their report in 1991 (Snowy Mountains Engi-
neering et al. (1991)). This study modelled
both demand and headworks and concluded
that there were three options to provide Sydney
with water. The first of these was either
increasing the capacity of the Warragamba dam
(by raising the height of the existing dam
wall, or constructing a flood mitigation dam
downstream of the existing dam), or a two-stage
development of the Shoalhaven. Second was
development of reverse osmosis and desalination
technology for effluent reuse. And third, was
a ‘risk management’ strategy in which further
capital investment would be postponed until a
crisis point was reached and then additional

technology, such as reverse osmosis technology,
would be installed expeditiously. The report
recommended not pursuing the third option
without further evaluation. The report con-
cluded that one or other of these schemes would
need to be commissioned by 2011/2012.

In July, 1993 the Welcome Reef development
was postponed indefinitely , the NSW Govern-
ment appearing to be following the third ‘risk
management’ option, together with demand
management. Other than the relatively small
Tallowa dam (mentioned above), the raising
and strengthening the wall of Warragamba dam
during the late 1980s, together with a new spill-
way to protect against the possibility of a major
flood in the late 1990s, there have been no
significant headworks since 1972 (Warragamba
fact sheet). However, there has been significant
work done in sewerage and drainage.

In the last 50 years, a number of smaller
sewerage systems have been built, particularly
in western Sydney (including trials of advanced
concepts such as the Rouse Hill re-use system
(Law 1996), there now being about 20 sewage
treatment systems in the Sydney metropolitan
area, although about 75% of sewage still is
treated by the three main deep-water outfalls
which discharge into the ocean just off the Syd-
ney coast. In the 1980s there was considerable
public outcry regarding the pollution of Syd-
ney’s ocean beaches and plans were announced
to move the sewage discharges from the three
ocean outfalls from a few hundred metres off
the cliff-face to between 2.5 and 3.8km offshore
(SMH 1989. Further works to upgrade ageing
sewage infrastructure and extend the system
over a 20-year period was also announced at this
time. Although sewerage and drainage work
has been the principal infrastructure develop-
ment during this period, two significant events
focused public attention on water supply. First
was the apparent water supply contamination
by cryptosporidium and giardia in 1998. A
Royal Commission was appointed, resulting in
Sydney Water Corporation (the government-
owned corporation which replaced the Water
Board in 1983) being broken into two major
parts: Sydney Water which has distribution
responsibility and the Sydney Catchment Au-

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM 21

thority which is responsible for catchment man-
agement (SMH 1998, Stein 2000). The second
event was a prolonged dry period, lasting from
2000 to 2007. By 2005, concern was growing
that were the drought to extend much beyond
the longest on record, Sydney’s supply of water
could become precariously low. ‘There was
considerable public discussion and dissatisfac-
tion with both government and Sydney Water’s
response to the situation (SMH 2006). Vari-
ous solutions were proposed including tapping
previously unutilised aquifers, reverse osmosis
treatment of sewage and stormwater, and re-
verse osmosis desalination of sea water. The
solution that was finally implemented was the

construction of a desalination plant at Kurnell
(Figure 13), privately owned and operated by
Veolia Water Operations Pty Ltd, the sub-
sidiary of a French multinational corporation
(SMH 2007).

Construction of the plant commenced in
2007 and it was commissioned in early 2010.
The capital expenditure was $1.9 billion, with
a capacity to provide 15% of Sydney’s wa-
ter needs, expandable to 30%. The current
operational capacity is 250 megalitres a day.
The intention is to provide the energy required
for operating the plant from a wind farm at
Bungendore (News release, NSW Govt. 2010b,
EPA Licence 2010a).

Figure 13: Desalination plant, Kurnell, 2008.

Institutional Arrangements

Until the 1970s, much of the construction of
water reticulation, sewerage, and drainage was
done using manual labour. The workforce
was unionised but there was a generally har-
monious relationship between the unions and
management. However, in 1975, during a period
of union militancy and high wage inflation in
the broader community, the relationship be-

tween the unionised workforce and management
deteriorated, culminating in a lengthy strike.
During the strike, raw sewage fouled Sydney’s
ocean beaches, broken water mains were not
repaired, and public dissatisfaction soared.
Opinions vary as to the underlying causes
of this breakdown in industrial relations: one
viewpoint was that the harmonious relationship
failed to deliver wage increases which were
common in other industries during a period of

22 HECTOR

full employment; another was that it was a
generational change as a younger group came
through the workforce, a group that had no
experience of the hardship of the Depression and
post-Second World War period when work was
scarce; still another was that it was largely a
result of a clash between an intransigent board
and a new breed of militant unionist (Beazley
1988, 201-205).

The board had been reconstituted in 1972
in response to perceptions that the prevailing
structure was inefficient and bureaucratic. But
the continuing disruptions of the 1970s led to
an enquiry and a further reconstitution of the
board in 1983, reflecting new public expec-
tations regarding statutory authorities. The
new board consisted of six part-time board
members, and a full-time general manager, all of
whom were appointed by the Minister. But the
performance of the Water Board had become a
major political issue and the problems relating
to ocean beach pollution in the 1980s, and
continued public perceptions of ineficiency lead
to further restructuring in 1993, establishing it
as a State-owned corporation, the Sydney Water
Corporation (referred to as Sydney Water). The
Water Board responded to becoming a target
of public dissatisfaction with advertising and
public relations campaigns, an approach which
was largely unsuccessful (Beder 1989, 369-376).

Since 1983, the Water Board and its suc-
cessor, Sydney Water, were transformed from
an engineering organisation to a commercial
enterprise (Beazley 1988, 173, 213-215). The
engineering group was dismantled, most engi-
neering design was let out to private contractors
and the large construction group was reduced in
size considerably, with much construction work
also being subcontracted to the private sector.
The NSW government now expects hundreds
of millions of dollars each year in dividends
from Sydney Water, with the consequence that
income which previously had been directed into
capital expenditure is now paid to the State
‘Treasury as a dividend.

As noted above, in 1998, the findings of
the McClelland Royal Commission resulted in
responsibility for catchment management be-
ing taken from Sydney Water and given to

the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA), a
newly-established statutory body representing
the Crown. The board of the SCA consists
of a managing director and chief executive,
and between four and eight board members
appointed by the Minister. The functions of the
authority are to supply water to Sydney Water
Corporation and other prescribed authorities
while taking steps to ensure that catchment
areas and infrastructure are managed so as to
promote water quality, to protect public health
and safety, and to protect the environment. In
2003, the NSW State government, in conjunc-
tion with the Federal government, established
13 further catchment management authorities
covering all catchments in NSW. These author-
ities have boards consisting of local residents
and landholders and are responsible for advising
the government on catchment health. They also
have limited funding to undertake environmen-
tal projects.

DISCUSSION

Several important matters emerge from this
consideration of this narrative. They can be
considered from two perspectives. On one hand,
Sydney like most major cities in developed
countries, saw construction of major water in-
frastructure over the last 150 years or so which
made extraordinary improvements to public
health and quality of life. The institutions
which were responsible for the construction and
management of this infrastructure was strongly
influenced by engineers — initially civil engineers
but subsequently, engineers of all disciplines.
Through protection of catchment areas, treat-
ment of water, distribution systems, effluent
management, sanitary drainage, and extensive
sewerage, an integrated water management and
sanitation system was developed which effec-
tively eliminated many communicable, water-
borne diseases. High-quality water was made
available at low cost to service both industrial
and domestic needs, despite major challenges
of climate and rainfall variability. Today,
these well-documented technical achievements
are largely taken for granted.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM 23

But there is another interpretation. From
the initial days of the formation of formalised
institutional arrangements in the mid-19th-
century, engineers were highly influential in
decision-making regarding Sydney’s water sys-
tem. From the 1840s onwards, engineers not
only took a great interest in development of
Sydney’s water system but were very influential
in the institutional arrangements which evolved.
Engineers were strongly represented on the
Royal Commission of 1869; it was an engineer
from London, William Clark, who reviewed
the Royal Commission’s findings; and engineers
were appointed to ‘official positions’ when the
Water Board was established in 1888. As
Beazley (1988) and Beder (1989), 173-174 point
out, the Water Board became an engineering
institution and that there is a strong influence
of engineering culture on the development of
Sydney’s water system. The reliance on water
as a means not only to supply both domestic
and industrial requirements for day-to-day life
but also as the primary means of sanitation
was established early on. For example, in the
late 19th century, in the spirited debate re-
garding dry conservancy versus wet carriage for
removing and transporting sewage, wet carriage
won the day. Beder argues that this was not
simply a technologically-won argument but that
the socially-constructed paradigm used by engi-
neers, together with their political influence and
expertise resulted in the dismissal of alternative
technologies, based on such considerations as
cost minimisation (in particular the utilisa-
tion of existing assets), institutionalisation of
technological education (engineers were taught
only one technology — water carriage — without
consideration of other technologies). The mo-
mentum created by this approach continued to
require development of massive infrastructure
without adequately evaluating options which
may have been more cost-effective and, perhaps,
more technologically effective.

Beder touches upon but does not develop
fully a further important point — the philosoph-
ical paradigm which underlies the practice of
engineering. It argued here that the situation
arose primarily because of the instrumentalist
view which engineers take to their discipline.

The engineering profession is focused on tech-
nological and economic effectiveness. It utilises
science and existing technology to develop so-
lutions with minimal capital expenditure and
maximum technological and cost effectiveness.
The paradigm is not confined to the utilisation
of science in the development of technology
or the maximisation of capital utilisation but
also extends to utilisation of ecological and
human resources. As long as society was willing
to sacrifice ecological and individual well-being
for some notion of ‘greater good’, the instru-
mentalist engineering paradigm and the social
paradigm of the day were largely aligned. How-
ever, in the 1970s the two paradigms diverged.

In the last forty years, there has been a
significant shift in societal values: late mod-
ernist thinking, critical theory, and postmod-
ernism have had a notable influence on West-
ern thought. While the technologically-focused
disciplines such as engineering continued to
be based upon an instrumentalist, positivist
philosophical perspective, the change in broad
community values led to a collapse in confidence
in the technological disciplines, including en-
gineering. Social expectations changed signif-
icantly, with expectations that labour should
be adequately rewarded, occupational health
and safety of workers should be looked af
ter, and that ecological responsibility (recognis-
ing either its extrinsic or intrinsic value) was
important. Because the Water Board, with
its predominantly technologically-oriented engi-
neering paradigm did not recognise this change
in social expectations, it slipped out of step with
community values. Its inability to respond to
this mounting public dissatisfaction and conse-
quent political pressure resulted in the institu-
tion being dismantled and the engineering in-
fluence which had dominated the Water Board
for a century was largely eliminated. Over a
period of about 20 years, the Water Board, as an
engineering institution, was dismantled and the
engineering services moved to the private sector.
As a result of public pressure, the Water Board
(and its successor organisations, Sydney Water
and the Sydney Catchment Authority) became
both corporatised and politicised, a state of
affairs which still prevails.

24 HECTOR

In the last thirty years, the complexity
of the situation increased greatly: apparently
irreconcilable differences among human stake-
holders, the environmental impact of proposed
solutions — particularly in relation to ripar-
ian health, wilderness areas, the significance
of archaeologically important indigenous sites,
and the interests of non-human species — have
further complicated the problem. Social ex-
pectations diverged from those of the tradi-
tional engineering paradigm: politics, differ-
ences in social perspective, shifts in power,
coercive behaviour within the problem con-
stituency, differences in stakeholder worldviews,
beliefs and values, and a range of issues
with differences of opinion regarding impor-
tance became increasingly dominant in the dis-
course.

But it had become clear in the 1970s that
Sydney’s population growth would require a
substantial increase in water system capacity.
The Welcome Reef Dam system was shelved
but little was done for nearly 20 years either
by the State government or Sydney Water to
plan other options. The Sydney catchment
had relatively high rainfall the last two decades
of the 20th century so it was not until the
prolonged dry period from 2000 to 2007 that
the issue was brought into sharp relief.

In the period from 2004 to 2006 the NSW
government scrambled to undertake the neces-
sary infrastructure analysis and, in the face of
what was looking to be the longest drought in
Sydney’s history, committed to the controver-
sial investment in the desalination plant without
adequately examining other options. History
suggests that there is significant variability in
Sydney’s long-term rainfall pattern — only time
will tell as to whether the decision to build this
plant was a good one or not.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks both the Library and
Archives at Sydney Water for their generous
assistance in providing the photographs used in
this paper. Sydney Water owns the copyright
for the photographs.

REFERENCES

Note: Three references cited extensively here
(F.J. Henry 1939, A.W. Aird 1961, and M.
Beazley 1988) were official histories of the
Sydney Water Board. Henry and Aird both
focused on the technical challenges and the
accomplishments of the Board, whereas Beazley
recorded the social history of the institution.

Sydney Water Supply Act 1833. 4 William IV
No 1, No 2a, 377-380, NSW, Australia

Environment Protection Licence, 2010a. 19 Au-
gust 2010, Environmental Protection Agency
of NSW.

Aird, W.V. 1961. The Water Supply, Sewerage
and Drainage of Sydney, 1788-1960, Halstead
Press Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia.

Ashburton Thompson, J. 1892. Sewerage of
Country Towns: The Separate System, Jour-
nal of the Royal Society of NSW, 26, 133-1438.

Beazley, M. 1988. The Sweat of Their Brows:
100 Years of the Sydney Water Board, 1888-—
1988, Water Board, Sydney, Illawarra, Blue
Mountains, Sydney, Australia.

Beder, S. 1989. From Pipe Dreams to Tunnel
Vision: engineering decision-making and Syd-
ney sewage system, PhD thesis, University of
New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 369-
376.

Beder, S. 1990. Early Environmentalists and
the Battle Against Sewers in Sydney, Royal
Australian Historical Society Journal, 76, 1,
27-44.

Boyne, G.A. & Cole, M. 1998. Evolution and
Local Government Structure: An Empirical
Analysis of London, Urban Studies, 35, 4,
751-768.

Clark, D. 1978. ‘‘Worse Than Physic’: Syd-
ney’s Water Supply 1788-1888’, in Kelly, M.
(Ed.) Nineteenth-Century Sydney: essays
in urban history, Sydney University Press,
Sydney, Australia.

Clark, W. 1877. Sydney Water Supply: Report
to the Government of New South Wales on
Various Projects for Supplying Sydney with
Water, New South Wales Government, Syd-
ney, Australia.

SYDNEY’S WATER SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE SYSTEM

Costa, P. (2010) Final tick of approval for
Sydney’s wind-powered desalination plant, 28
Jul 2010, Media release, NSW Government.

Henry, F.J. 1939. The Water Supply and
Sewerage of Sydney, Halstead Press Pty Ltd,
Sydney, Australia. ;

Law, I.B. 1996. Rouse Hill — Australia’s first
full-scale, domestic, non-potable reuse appli-
cation, Water Science and Technology, 33,
No. 10-11, pp. 71-78.

Parkin, J. 2000. Engineering Judgement and
Risk, Thomas Telford, London, pp. 158-176.

Richards, T. 1883. An Epitome of the Official
History of NSW, from the foundation of the
colony in 1788, to the close of the first session
of the llth Parliament under responsible
government in 1883, Thomas Richards, NSW
Government Printer, Sydney, Australia, p.
92.

Schwartz, P. 1966. John Stuart Mill and laissez
faire: London water, Economica, New Series,
33, 129, pp. 71-83.

Seebohm, K. 2000. The Welcome Reef dam
Proposal as a Case Study of Social Assess-
ment Practice by Australian Water Utilities:
Research Report No. 154, Urban Water Re-
search Association of Australia, pp. 24-53.

Sydney Morning Herald, 11 Sep 1989, $4.5b
Plan to Fix Sydney’s Sewers.

bo
On

Sydney Morning Herald, 30 Oct 1998, Mc-
Clellan Leaves Water Hierarchy Shaken and
Stirred.

Sydney Morning Herald, 15 May 2006, Short
on solutions, the new water plan will leave
Sydney high and dry.

Sydney Morning Herald, 21 Jun 2007, Desal
plant to ‘future-proof’ water supply.

Smith, J. 1869. ‘History of the water supply
of Sydney’, in Smith, J. (Ed.) Royal Com-
mission Report: Water Supply of Sydney and
Its Suburbs, New South Wales Government,
Sydney, Australia.

Snowy Mountains Engineering, C., Sinclair &
Knight, P. 1991. Water Supply Strategy Re-
view: Water Resource Investigations, Phase
1, Water Board, Sydney, Australia.

Trevor Jones, J. 1886. Sanitation of the Sub-
urbs of Sydney, Journal of the Royal Society
of NSW, 20, 362-369.

Wheeler, $.M. 2000. Planning for Metropolitan
Sustainability, Journal of Planning Education
and Research, 20, 2, 133-145.

Woore, T. 1869. ‘Warragamba dam proposal’ in
Smith, J. (Ed.) Royal Commission Report:
Water Supply of Sydney and its Suburbs,
New South Wales Government, Sydney, Aus-
tralia, 148-151, 158.

Donald Hector BE(Chem) PhD FIChemE FIEAust

Email: dchector@grassick.com.au

(Manuscript received 2011.06.27, accepted 2011.07.20)

Donald Hector is principal consultant at Gras-
sick SSG Pty Ltd, a specialist corporate advi-
sory firm. Don was managing director of Dow
Corning Australia, a subsidiary of Dow Corn-
ing Corporation, and of Asia Pacific Specialty
Chemicals Ltd, a publicly-listed Australian com-
pany. He is a non-executive director of ASX-
listed public and private companies and not-
for-profit organisations. Don has a PhD in
Engineering and is a Fellow of the Institution
of Chemical Engineers, of the Institution of
Engineers (Australia), and of the Australian
Institute of Company Directors.

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Journal €& Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 27-33, 2011
ISSN 0035-9173/11/010027-7

Laser Acceleration up to Black Hole Values
and B-Meson Decay

H. HORA, R. CASTILLO, T. STAIT-GARDNER, D.H.H. HOFFMANN, G.H. MILEY & P. LALOUSIS

Paper delivered at the International Conference on Physics in Intense Fields,
24-26 November 2010 at KEK, Tsukuba, Japan.

This paper is dedicated to Professor Chiyoe Yamanaka, Osaka University, for
his 88°" birthday.

Keywords: ultrahigh laser intensities, pair production from vacuum, efficient antihydrogen
production by lasers, alternative laser-fusion

Abstract: Studies of laser produced pair production are followed up from early stages. Pair
production by vacuum polarization was discussed with laser produced acceleration up to values
similar to those at the surface of black holes leading to the discovery of a difference between
Hawking and Unruh radiation. It was found that production of anti-hydrogen by this method
is at least a million times more efficient than by present day accelerator technology. Another
application of ultrahigh laser fields is to focus them into the collision area of the LHC (Large
Hadron Collider) to study the details of the B-meson decay. This also may allow us to detect
more details about CP violation of B; mesons and possible signs of new particles on the
horizon. Lasers with picosecond pulses and exawatts of power are now becoming available
which will be interesting for studying ultra-intense shock waves in astrophysics and resulting

nuclear reactions.

INTRODUCTION AND INITIAL
RESULTS

Using very high intensity laser radiation, with
the electric and magnetic fields E and H far
above any values applied before, has led to many
new physics phenomena and to the realisation
that the nonlinear physics involved opens a new
dimension of exploration. It has also shown that
the linear physics needs to be based on higher
accuracy data than previously thought (Hora
2000a).

Examples have appeared where results in
linear physics were completely wrong compared
to results in nonlinear physics in contrast to
earlier instances where there were only grad-
ual differences or approximations. This was
discovered not only through using techniques
to produce higher and higher laser intensities,
mostly realised by chirped pulse amplification
CPA (Mourou et al. 2001), but also from consid-
ering relativistic effects. The first calculations
on how to produce relativistic conditions for
pair production of electrons was done by Bunkin
(Bunkin et al. 1969) and these calculations were

extended to determine the conditions for laser

fields to produce quiver motion of electrons with
. “)

energies above mc* (Hora 1973a).

Calculation of the conditions for produc-
ing anti-protons (Hora 1973a, Hora 1973b,
Shearer et al. 1973) and experiments by Shearer
(Shearer et al. 1974) were the very first to show
indications of the generation of laser produced
positrons. With respect to the quiver motion
and drift for proton pair production, the advan-
tages of long wave length laser pulses was found
to be of considerable interest (Christopoulos
et al. 1988). After interest in antihydrogen
for space research became more widely known,
the use of lasers for fusion also was found
to be of interest because the efficiency was
more than one million times higher with lasers
due to the available particle density was much
higher than with accelerator techniques. It was
calculated that a mission to the next star within
a reasonable time of 50 years can only be done
with laser produced anti-hydrogen fuel (Hora et
al. 1986). Thanks to the CPA technique, sub-
picosecond laser pulses of 2 PW produced for
the first time a considerable number of positrons

28 HORA et al.

(Cowan et al. 1999) finally achieving record-
level positon beams with intensities above any
other method (Chen et al. 2009).

PAIR PRODUCTION BY VACUUM
POLARIZATION

Pair production in vacuum was from the begin-
ning considered (Bunkin et al. 1969, Hora 1973a
and 1973b) where a laser intensity above 107°
W/cm? was needed (Heisenberg 1934, Heisen-
berg et al. 1936). A correction to an about
ten times higher value followed later (Hora et
al. 2002). At these intensities the acceleration
of the electrons by the electric field of the laser
is close to the values of Hawking radiation and
Unruh radiation at the surface of black holes.
This was studied in and compared to black body
radiation in which fields are of the same order
and where the electrons at thermal equilibrium
were not longer following Fermi-Dirac statistics
(Hora et al. 1961, Eliezer at al. 2002, Stait-
Gardner et al. 2006). Further studies clarified
that there was a difference between the Hawking
and the Unruh radiation (Hawking 1975) with
a relation to the Casimir effect (Unruh 1976,
Unruh et al. 1989). These results were based
on the theory of electron acceleration in vacuum
(Hora 1988, Wang et al. 1998, Hora et al. 2000b)
as a basically nonlinear effect (Hora 2000a).
The essential aspects of these studies are as
follows.

The Unruh effect is a phenomenon whereby
an accelerated observer travelling through a
true vacuum state — that is the ground state |O>
which will be referred to here as the Minkowski
vacuum — will experience themselves to be im-
mersed in a thermal blackbody distribution of
particles (Hawking 1975). Before comparing the
thermal radiation experienced by an accelerated
observer to the Hawking radiation of a black
hole a brief digression into the physical nature
of the vacuum is appropriate.

The Minkowski vacuum is a physical vacuum
with pairs of virtual particles manifesting for
short durations continuously and, unlike the
pre-quantum field theory of vacuum, has ob-
servable effects on physical systems (e.g. the fine
structure of the atomic hydrogen spectrum and

the Casimir effect). Taking the Casimir effect as
an example, two parallel mirrors placed in a vac-
uum will experience an attractive force inversely
proportional to the forth power of the distance
separating them as a result of the quantum
fluctuations of the vacuum. Essentially long
wavelength virtual particles cannot manifest
between the conducting mirrors resulting in a
decreased energy density between the mirrors
compared with the vacuum surrounding them
where there is no such restriction. The Casimir
effect is symbolic of the physical nature of the
quantum vacuum.

The quantum field is best decomposed for an
accelerated observer using a different basis than
the standard momentum basis used in quantum
field theory; this basis being related to the stan-
dard basis by the Bogoliubov transformations.
These transformations play an integral part in
analyses of the Unruh effect. The particle
number operator differs too and does not give
zero when applied to the Minkowski vacuum
state (which is not identical to the Rindler
vacuum state). The result is, as stated above,
that accelerated observers in a pure vacuum will
experience themselves in a heat bath with a
blackbody distribution.

Thus a state without particles to an inertial
observer will be seen to contain particles by an
accelerated observer. The dependence of tem-
perature upon acceleration is T = 2amckga/h,
where c is the velocity of light, and a is the
acceleration. If a is interpreted as the accelera-
tion at the event horizon of a black hole then
the same equation describes the temperature
of the thermal radiation emitted from a black
hole via the process of Hawking radiation. The
similarity of the equations and the equivalence
principle of general relativity hint that the
mechanisms for the radiation may be the same
but this is not the case. Consider the following.

Hawking radiation is sometimes described as
resulting from pair production near the horizon
of a black hole with one of the virtual particles
escaping and becoming real and the other disap-
pearing into the black hole (Hawking 1975). All
observers experience Hawking radiation while
only accelerated observers experience the Unruh
effect. Furthermore, an observer on Earth is

LASER ACCELERATION UP TO BLACK HOLE VALUES AND B-MESON DECAY 29

effectively in an accelerated coordinate system
via the equivalence principle and hence should
observe the surrounding vacuum to have a
temperature due to the Unruh effect. However,
the Earth does not emit Hawking radiation and
neither do other gravitational bodies without
event horizons. The Unruh effect results from
a different mechanism to that of Hawking ra-
diation; it is local, being experienced only by
accelerated observers (Stait-Gardner 2006).

PETAWATT LASER PULSES FOR
B-MESON DIAGNOSTICS

The present day available PW laser pulses of
sub-picosecond duration and the next higher
powers can be used for important studies of
the details of B-meson diagnostics because their
lifetimes are on the same time scale. The use
of lasers with as a diagnostic tool for collider
beam interactions was studied previously (Hora
1992) for the conditions of the Large Electron
Positron (LEP) collider. This can now be
extended for the conditions of B-mesons, e.g.
at the Large Hadron Collider LHC or similar
B-meson factories (Hora et al. 2008).

A prototype of this technique was given by
the interaction of 10'° W/cm? laser intensities
in low density helium (Boreham et al. 1979). It
was expected from theory that a radial emission
of electrons from the focus should convert half
of the quiver energy of the electrons into energy
of translative motion. The measured energy
of radially emitted keV electrons corresponded
exactly to the theory predictions. The conser-
vation of the momentum of the photons leads
to a slightly forward direction parallel to the
laser axis. This was measured (Meyerhofer
et al. 1996) and found to be in agreement
with the earlier prediction (Hora et al. 1983).
Similarly, charged particles generated in the
focus of the collider when in the focus of the
laser beam, will get an upshift of energy and a
change of direction. Petawatt or even the higher
exawatt (EW) laser pulses of a few fs duration
(Azechi 2011) can then follow up the timing of
generating or annihilating processes of the B-
meson generation and the decay processes. The
importance of this is that further analyzing the

different types of B-mesons e.g. with respect to
B® — B® oscillations (Abdullenia et al. 2006)
where the time resolution can be measured in
subsequent steps with the later (Hora et al.
2006). It was mentioned that this open the way
to find “possible new particles on the horizon”
(Stokstad 2010).

The theory is based on electro-dynamic in-
teraction of the laser radiation with the particles
as known from plasma interaction as the non-
linear force given by (Hora 1969, 1985, 1991):

fy, = V-[EE+ HH — 0.5(E? + H”)1
+(1 + (0/dt) /w)(n? — 1)EE] /40
—(O/Ot)E x H/4mc (1)

where 1 is the unity tensor and c is the vacuum
speed of light (see Eq. 8.88 of Hora 1991).
The value n is the (complex) refractive index
determined by the laser frequency w and the
electron-ion collision frequency v of a plasma:

n=1- (Mey Nee) / (1 fig iv/w) (2)

where n,. is the electron density, n-. is the
critical electron density and where the plasma
frequency Ww, is equal to the laser frequency
w. The dielectric properties of the vacuum
polarization are to be included appropriately for
pair production in a vacuum. The derivation
of this force with inclusion of the dielectric
plasma properties for the non-transient case
(Hora 1969) was based on momentum conser-
vation. The final complete transient case, Eq.
(1), was derived later (Hora 1985) and is based
on symmetry where it was proved that this, and
only this, is the Lorentz and gauge invariant
description of the nonlinear force.

For the simplified one-dimensional geometry
and perpendicular laser irradiation, the force (1)
can be reduced to the time averaged value:

= —(0/dx)(E* + H’)/87
= —(wp/w)*(d/dx)(E)/n)/167 (3)

INL

where E,, is the amplitude of the electric field
in vacuum. The last expression is reminiscent
of the formulation of the ponderomotive force in
electrostatics and is sometimes called “radiation
pressure acceleration”.

The relativistic limits for the emission of the
charged particles from the collider area with

30 HORA et al.

a laser focus are given for laser intensities of
neodymium glass lasers (Hora et al. 2008):

(1) charged B-mesons;
Let 12x10? Wem” Ae = 2.41 keV

(2) protons or antiprotons from the B-decay;
Ler'= 3.9xK107" Wem" Ae-= 4046

(3) charged 7-mesons from B-mesons decay;
Lat = 2:73xK107? Wiem* Ac =31.5keV

The size of the lasers for PW-fs pulses are
comparably compact such that the diagnostics
with an additional laser focus may not be a
too difficult problem. The signals from the
detectors for comparable cases with and without
the laser will then be done by functional analyt-
ical folding of the information about the time
dependence of creation, decay and annihilation
processes of the numerous types of charged
particles.

EXAWATT LASER PULSES FOR
SHOCK WAVES AND NUCLEAR
REACTIONS

Studies with advanced PW to EW laser pulses
are also important for exotic conditions of shock
waves in astrophysics (Hora et al. 2011), ultra-
high acceleration and for related interactions,
including nuclear mechanisms. ‘The essential
difference from the usual thermal pressure gen-
eration processes in plasmas is the direct conver-
sion of laser energy into particle motion. This
can be seen from the nonlinear forces including
the optical response since 1969 (Hora 1969) ex-
pressed in Eq. (1). The then predicted ultrahigh
accelerations were first measured by Sauerbrey
by the Doppler effect at target interaction with
above TW-ps laser pulses. The nonlinear force
driven accelerations were 107° cm/s? (Sauerbrey
1996) in contrast to comparable accelerations
with thermal-pressures of 10!° cm/s? (Park et
al. 2011). The high acceleration was in full
agreement with the theory (Hora et al. 2007)
and could then be used to ignite solid state
density fusion fuel deuterium tritium DT (Hora
2009). This is a rather simplified scheme of
igniting hydrogen-''boron that produces less

radiation per megawatt of generated energy
than burning coal (Hora et al. 2010).

Figure 1 shows the computations of the
ion density of the fusion flame in frozen DT
at ps laser irradiation of 107? W/cm?. This
demonstrates the expected velocity of the re-
action front. In addition this reaction front,
propagating through the solid DT, can gen-
erate compressions up to four times the solid
state value within the moving short-depth shock
wave. This numerical result agrees with the
factor four of the Rankine-Hugoniot shock wave
theory. The shock velocity of 1550 km/s is in the
range known for this type of interaction.

DT Ion Density x 107° (em~?)

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6
Depth (mm)

Figure 1. Genuine two fluid hydrodynamic
computations (Lalousis et al. 1983, Hora et
al. 1984) of the ion density in solid DT after
irradiation of a laser pulse of 10? W/cm? of ps
duration at the times 22 ps (dashed) and 225 ps
after the initiation.

For later times the fusion flame shows an
increasing deviation of the density profile from
the simplified shock wave theory. This is evident
from measuring the velocity of the generated
alpha particles as the flame moves into the
untouched solid DT. The velocities will change
as the conditions of densities and temperatures
within the DT gradually change. Remarkably,
the velocity of the entire flame is unchanged.
More properties are given in the references,
however, the genuine two-fluid computations
arrive at many more details than known from

LASER ACCELERATION UP TO BLACK HOLE.VALUES AND B-MESON DECAY | 31

the one-fluid computation (Hora 2009, Hora et
al. 2010). It is important to note that these
studies model ps laser pulses in the range of
30PW up to nearly EW.

Generalizing the preceding computations,
the genuine two-fluid hydrodynamics (Lalousis
et al. 1983, Hora et al. 1984) is used in order
to follow up the details of the generated very
high electric fields in the shock fronts and to
confirm most of the other results calculated
before with the usual one fluid hydrodynamics.
The results are interesting for astrophysical
cases and for shock ignition of fusion (Betti et al.
2007) where in contrast to the thermal pressure
process, the new research now is generalized to
non-thermal nonlinear force direct conversion of
laser energy into plasma motion to reach ultra-
high accelerations.

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Azechi, H. and EXA Team. Current Status of
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PIF2010, K. Itakura et al. eds. KEK Report
Tsukuba/Japan, 2011 p. 137

Betti R., Zhou, C.D., Anderson, K.S., Perkins,
L.J., Theobald, W. and Solodov, A.A., Shock
Ignition of Thermonuclear Fuel with High
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Phys. Rev. D 14, pp. 870-892 (1976) Feng, L., Scheid, W. and Hora, H. Electron
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(1984)

H. Hora, Dept. Theor. Phys. UNSW Sydney, Australia. Email: h.horaQ@unsw.edu.au *
R. Castillo, T. Stait-Gardner, BMSci. Univ. Western Sydney, Campbelltown, Australia
D.H.H. Hoffmann, Dept. Nucl. Phys. TU Darmstadt, Germany

G.H. Miley, Dept. Nucl. Plasma & Radiolog. Engin. Univ. Illinois USA

P. Lalousis, IESL/FORTH, Heraklion, Greece

* Author for correspondence.

(Manuscript received 2011.01.18, accepted 2011.05.22)

\y

rs

Journal € Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 35-38, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/010035-4

Awards 2010

In 2010 the Royal Society of NSW sought
nominations for the Clarke Medal (in Geology),
the Edgeworth David Medal and the Walter
Burfitt Prize. The Society received an outstand-
ing range of submissions from several different
States and Territories. The Awards Ceremony

was held at the Annual Dinner of the Society at
St Paul’s College, University of Sydney on 18th
February 2011. The Awards were presented by
the Society’s Patron, the Governor of NSW, Her
Excellency Professor Marie Bashir AC CVO.

Prof. Ken Campbell, Prof. Richard Shine and Assoc. Prof. Angela Moles receive
their awards from the Governor of NSW, Her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir
AC CVO.

36 AWARDS 2010

The Clarke Medal 2010

PROFESSOR KENTON CAMPBELL

The Clarke Medal is awarded for outstanding research in the natural sciences

in Australia, and rotates between botany, zoology and geology.

The medal

commemorates the Rev W.B. Clarke who played a key role in the Society in
the middle and later part of the 19th Century.

The 2010 Clarke Medal was awarded to Pro-
fessor Kenton Campbell, Emeritus Professor of
Geology at the Australian National University.
He began his career under Professor Dorothy
Hill at the University of Queensland. Dorothy
Hill in her time was a leading palaeontologist
and won the Clarke Medal of the Royal Society
of NSW in 1966. Professor Campbell then
worked at the University of New England, and
in 1962 he went to the Australian National
University, where he still works. While most
of his research has been done in Australia, he
worked for short periods in Cambridge, Har-
vard, Chicago and London. He became a Fellow
of the Australian Academy in 1983, and won the
Academy’s Mawson Medal in 1986. He gave the
Clarke Memorial Lecture to the Royal Society
of NSW in 1975.

Professor Campbell is Australia’s senior
palaeontologist. His research began in stratig-
raphy, at a time when palaeontology was con-
sidered merely the handmaiden of stratigra-
phy. Professor Campbell has pioneered the
development of palaeontology in its own right.
He became an international authority on fossil
marine organisms, particularly the trilobites.
In 1965, he started working on the lungfish
and became expert on its nervous system and
dentition. He developed a method to extract
fossils from limestone. This technique uses
chemicals to dissolve the limestone, leaving
the bones intact, revealing minute anatomical
details. In his studies on lungfish, he has been
able to compare the earliest fossils with today’s
living animals. His research has moved into the
study of evolutionary biology and genetics.

Professor Campbell began publishing his
scientific research in 1952. He has continued
to work in the Geology Department of the
ANU, where he conducts his research, lectures
to undergraduate classes and gives advice to
postgraduate students. He is an outstanding
Australian scientist and a worthy winner of the
Clarke Medal.

i; wn
Bae,
gtyrte :

AWARDS 2010 37

Edgeworth David Medal 2010

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR ANGELA MOLES

The Edgeworth David Medal is awarded for distinguished contributions by
a young scientist who must be under the age of thirty-five in the year of
the Award. It was established in memory of Professor Sir Tannatt William
Edgeworth David, FRS, a past President of the Society.

The winner of the 2010 Edgeworth David
Medal, Angela Moles, is an Associate Professor
at the University of New South Wales, in the
Evolution and Ecology Research Centre. She
completed a Bachelor of Science at Victoria Uni-
versity of Wellington in New Zealand, and then
did a PhD at Macquarie University, graduating
in 2004. After further research in the USA and
at Macquarie and Victoria Universities, Angela
moved to UNSW in 2007. In 2008, she received
a prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship
from the Australian Research Council. In 2009,
the Australian Academy of Science gave her the
JG Russell award, that goes to the top Queen
Elizabeth II Fellow.

Angela’s primary research goals are to un-
derstand the different ways in which plants grow
and reproduce in different environments around
the world. Her research aims to better under-
stand the selective processes underlying plant
ecological strategies. In her PhD, she achieved
international recognition for her work on the
evolutionary history of seed size. At present,
Angela has three main research projects. Firstly
there is the "The World Herbivory Project".
This aims to quantify global patterns in inter-
actions between plants and animals. She has
travelled to 75 different ecosystems around the
world to obtain data for this project. Secondly,
she is quantifying the extent to which intro-
duced plants have evolved since they arrived in
Australia. Finally she is using clonal plants to
get new insights into the evolutionary advantage
of sexual reproduction.

Angela has published 37 papers to date,
including a first author paper in the prestigious
journal “Nature”. Her work has been cited over
1200 times. She is an editor of three ecology
journals. She has a talent for asking big research
questions. Angela is a very worthy winner of the
Edgeworth David Medal. She has accomplished
a great deal before the age of 35, and the Society
looks forward to further achievements in the
future.

38 AWARDS 2010

Walter Burfitt Prize 2010

PROFESSOR RICHARD SHINE

The Walter Burfitt Prize is awarded at intervals of three years to a worker in
pure or applied science, whose papers and other contributions published during
the past six years are deemed of the highest scientific merit. The Prize was
established as a result of a generous gift to the Society by Dr W.F. Burfitt,
which was augmented by subsequent gifts from his family.

The 2010 Walter Burfitt Prize was awarded
to Richard Shine, a Professor in Biology at
the University of Sydney. He obtained his
BSc honours from the ANU and his PhD from
the University of New England. After post-
doctoral work in Utah, he returned to Australia
in 1978. From that time he has worked at
Sydney University, where he was awarded a
DSc in 1988. He became a Fellow of the
Australian Academy in 2003, and was appointed
as a Member of the Order of Australia in 2005.
He has won many other honours and awards,
including a prestigious Federation Fellowship
from the Australian Research Council in 2006,
and the Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of
NSW for biology in 1999.

Rick Shine’s research spans a wide range
of species, ecosystems and conceptual areas,
but focuses most strongly on the ecology and
evolution of reptiles and amphibians. The harsh
conditions in Australia favour cold-blooded an-
imals, which need less energy and water than
birds and mammals. Rick has conducted exten-
sive and detailed research on Australian snakes

and lizards, including the first comprehensive
studies of how climate affects the viability of
tropical reptile populations. In recent years,
his work has transformed our understanding of
invasive cane toads, identifying many vulnera-
bilities reflecting their mismatch to Australian
conditions. He has generated a suite of new
approaches to reduce toad numbers and mit-
igate their ecological impact. He contributes
regularly to the media. In his dissemination
of his research results to the general public, he
has emphasized the critical importance of “cold-
blooded” Australians in conservation planning.

Rick Shine’s productivity during the last
six years has been quite astonishing. During
this time, he has published 259 papers, out
of a career total of more than 700 papers in
scientific journals. During the last 6 years, his
publications include 4 reports in the prestigious
journal Nature. Nor surprisingly, he is among
the world’s most highly cited authors in his
field, with over 16,000 citations. He is a most
deserving winner of the Walter Burfitt Medal.

Journal € Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 39-40, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/010039-2

Applications for Awards 2011

THE EDGEWORTH DAVID MEDAL 2011

The Edgeworth David Medal, established
in memory of Professor Sir Tannatt William
Edgeworth David, FRS, a past President of the
Society, is awarded for distinguished contribu-
tions by a young scientist.

The conditions of the Award of the Medal
are: (a) The recipient must be under the age
of thirty-five years at lst January, 2011. (b)
The Award will be for work done mainly in
Australia or its Territories or contributing to
the advancement of Australian science.

Nominations are called for the names of
suitable persons who have contributed signif-
icantly to science, including scientific aspects

THE CLARKE MEDAL 2011

The Clarke Medal, established in memory
of the Reverend William Branwhite Clarke,
MA, FRS, FGS, Vice-President of The Royal
Society of NSW from 1866 to 1878, is considered
for award annually for distinguished work in
a natural science done in Australia and its
Territories.

This year’s award is in the field of Botany
in all its aspects, and nominations are called
for the names of suitable persons who have
contributed significantly to this science.

The Council requests that every nomination
should be accompanied by a list of publications,
a full curriculum vitae, and also by a statement
clearly indicating which part of the nominee’s
work was done in Australia and which part was
done overseas.

Agreement of the nominee to his/her nomi-
nation must be obtained by the nominator be-
fore submission of the nomination and included
in the submission.

of agriculture, engineering, dentistry, medicine
and veterinary science.

Agreement of the nominee to his/her nomi-
nation must be obtained by the nominator be-
fore submission of the nomination and included
in the submission.

Please submit electronic copies of the nomi-
nations and supporting material not later than
30th September 2011. In addition, please mail
one hard copy of the nomination and supporting
material to the address below.

The winner will be announced and the
Medal presented at the Annual Dinner of the
Royal Society of NSW to be held in early 2012.

Please submit electronic copies of the nomi-
nations and supporting material not later than
30th September 2011. In addition, please mail
one (1) hard copy of the nomination and sup-
porting material to the address below.

The winner will be announced and _ the
Medal presented at the Annual Dinner of the
Royal Society to be held in early 2012. The
winner will be notified at least two weeks be-
forehand.

For further information and inquiries please
contact the Society on info@royalsoc.org.au
or 02 9036 5282. Electronic copies should be
sent to: info@royalsoc.org.au marked for the
attention of the Honorary Secretary. All paper
mail should be addressed to:

Honorary Secretary

The Royal Society of NSW
Building H47

University of Sydney, NSW 2006

40 APPLICATIONS FOR AWARDS 2011

THE WARREN LECTURE AND PRIZE 2011

Entries for the 2011 award close on Monday 31 October 2011.

The Warren Lecture and Prize has been
established by the Royal Society of NSW
(with support from the Warren Centre of Ad-
vanced Engineering at the University of Sydney
and Engineers Australia, Sydney Division) to
acknowledge Professor Warren’s contribution
both to the Society and to the technological
disciplines in Australia and internationally. The
aim of the award is to recognise research of na-
tional or international significance by engineers
and technologists in their first two decades or so
of professional practice. The research must have
originated or have been carried out principally
in New South Wales. The prize is $1,000 for the
winner and a prize of $500 each for two runners-
up.

Who should enter? The Society expects that
entries will come from two groups of researchers:
early-career researchers who have already estab-
lished a publication record in top-tier journals
around a particular topic and wish to make a
broader audience aware of the importance of
their work; early mid-career researchers who
have completed a larger body of work that they
believe has relevance to society generally and

wish to publicise this work as part of an on-
going research and teaching programme.

Entries would be expected from academics,
researchers in government research organisa-
tions (e.g. CSIRO, ANSTO, DSTO) and other
public and private enterprises that encourage
original research and development. It is the
richness and relevance of the research that
the Society sees as important, rather than the
affiliated institution.

Entries are by submission of an original pa-
per written to academic standards. The paper
should review the research done and identify its
national or international significance. Prefer-
ence will be given to entries that demonstrate
relevance across the spectrum of knowledge —
science, art, literature and philosophy — that the
Society promotes.

Only electronic entries will be accepted and
must be submitted via e-mail to the Society at
this address: editor@royalsoc.org.au. En-
trants are referred to “Information for Authors”
available from the Society’s web-site http://
nsw.royalsoc.org.au/authors.html.

Journal € Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 41-44, 2011
ISSN 0035-9173/11/010041—4

Royal Society of NSW Scholarships 2010

The Scholarship Awards for 2010 were presented on Wednesday, Ist December 2010 at St. Paul’s
College, University of Sydney. Congratulations to the winners; Dennis Black, Lidia Matesic &
Kerensa McElroy. A short summary of their research appears on the following few pages.

Royal Society of NSW Scholarships 2011

The Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarships are funded by the Society’s Council in
order to acknowledge outstanding achievements by individuals working in a science-related field.

Applications for Royal Society of New South Wales Scholarships are sought from candidates
working in a science-related field in New South Wales or the Australian Capital Territory. Up to
three Scholarships will be awarded each year. Applicants must be enrolled as research students
at a University in NSW or the ACT, and must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents of
Australia. There is no restriction with respect to field of study, except that candidates working in
physics are encouraged to apply instead for the Royal Society of NSW Scholarship to be offered at
the NSW branch of the Australian Institute of Physics Postgraduate Awards Event; please refer
to http://www.nsw.aip.org.au for further information about this Event.

Your application should include a statement of the significance of your work particularly within
the broader context of your chosen field, an abstract of your work (ca 500 words), and a brief
curriculum vitae, including details of your professional experience. Be sure to enclose a list of your
publications. There is no application form. The closing date for applications is 30th September
2011. The applications will be considered by a selection committee appointed by the Council of the
Society, and the decision will be made by the end of October 2011. The decision of the committee
is final. The Scholarships will be awarded on merit.

The award consists of a certificate acknowledging your achievement, a $500 prize and a free
one-year of membership of the Society. The winners will be expected to deliver a short presentation
of their work at the Monthly Meeting of the Society on Wednesday 7” December 2011, and prepare
a short paper for the Society’s Journal.

One (1) hard copy of the application should mailed to:

The Honorary Secretary

Royal Society of New South Wales
Building H47, University of Sydney
NSW 2006

In addition, an electronic copy should be emailed to: info@nsw.royalsoc.org.au
marked for the attention of the Honorary Secretary.

Closing Date: 30th September 2011

A2 SCHOLARSHIPS 2010

Factors Affecting the Drainage of Gas from Coal
and Methods to Improve Drainage Effectiveness

DENIS BLACK
University of Wollongong

A significant amount of gas is produced
during the process of coal seam formation,
known as coalification. The conditions present
during and subsequent to coalification may be
highly variable which can result in significant
differences in coal seam properties over rel-
atively short distances. The processes and
properties that control the generation, storage
and emission of gas from coal seams have been
investigated.

High coal seam gas content represents a
potential risk to the safety and productivity of
underground coal mining operations. In areas
where gas content is high and the rate of gas
emission into the mine environment during min-
ing is likely to exceed the diluting capacity of
the mine ventilation systematic gas drainage is
typically used to extract gas from the seam prior
to mining. However, given the variable nature
of coal, zones exist within seam where drainage
can be particularly difficult. Where extremely
difficult drainage conditions exist conventional
gas drainage methods may be ineffective in
reducing the seam gas content below safe levels
prior to the arrival of advancing mine workings
resulting in production delays and even loss of
reserves.

This project was initiated to investigate
the reasons for poor coal seam gas drainage
performance within the Bulli coal seam and to
recommend actions to improve drainage per-
formance from such areas thereby supporting
improved mine safety, productivity and resource
recovery.

The primary aim of this study was to inves-
tigate the relationship between gas production
from underground to inseam (UIS) drainage
boreholes and various coal seam properties and
operational factors for which data was able to
be collected. Gas production from 279 UIS gas

Denis Black
Department of Engineering,

University of Wollongong
NSW 2522, Australia

drainage boreholes was collated and assessed
relative to a variety of coal properties and oper-
ational factors. The highly variable conditions
present throughout the study area and extensive
data representing gas production, geological
properties and operational factors enabled a
thorough and comprehensive assessment to be
completed.

Degree of gas saturation and permeabil-
ity within the coal seam were found to have
the most significant impact on coal seam gas
drainage with extremely poor drainage expected
from deeply undersaturated coal with low per-
meability. In areas were gas drainage was
particularly difficult conventional methods were
shown to be incapable of reducing coal seam
gas content below safe limits ahead of mining.
In such areas alternative gas drainage methods
must be considered. To improve coal seam gas
drainage in advance of underground mine work-
ings, particularly in areas with low permeability
and historically poor gas drainage performance,
a new method involving the controlled injection
of an inert gas, such as nitrogen or compressed
air, is presented.

The nature of coal seam gas emission from
both fast and slow desorption gas testing meth-
ods was also investigated from which a number
of significant relationships were identified. From
analysis of 4785 gas tests, collected from eight
Australian underground coal mines, new equa-
tions have been proposed for estimating average
and maximum expected coal seam gas content,
based on the use of early stage gas desorption.

The method used to determine outburst
threshold limits applicable to Australian under-
ground coal mines has also been investigated.
Based on the results of this analysis a new
method has been proposed.

SCHOLARSHIPS 2010 43

Targeted Delivery of Chemotherapeutic Agents
Using Novel lsatin-based Compounds

LIDIA MATESIC
University of Wollongong

Cancer will affect one in two men and one
in two women before the age of 85. Today,
cancer is the second leading cause of death in
the developed world killing over 39000 people
in Australia in 2005. People of all ages may
be affected by cancer, although incidence gen-
erally increases with age. Due to Australia’s
increasingly aging population, it is estimated
that the number of deaths caused by cancer
will increase by an extra 800 people per year.
Financially, cancer costs the Australian health
system $3.8 billion per year, a total of 7.2%
of the entire health system expenditure. While
more than 60% of cancer patients will survive
for more than five years after initial diagnosis,
current chemotherapeutics need to be improved
to further increase survival rates.

Targeted drug delivery increases the avail-
ability of a drug at the target site while re-
ducing its availability at other sites, and is
currently one of the most challenging problems
in pharmaceutical research. A novel strategy
which shows promise for the targeted delivery of
cytotoxins involves the urokinase plasminogen
activation (uPA) system. The uPA system
comprises the protease uPA, its cell-membrane
anchored receptor uPAR and two endogenous
inhibitors, PAI-1 and PAI-2. The uPA system
possesses an appealing new target for anti-
cancer therapy by exploiting the uPA receptor
to deliver cytotoxic agents into tumour cells.
This is achievable since PAI-1 and PAI-2 trigger
a series of events which internalise the cyto-
toxin/inhibitor/uPA/uPAR through receptor-
mediated endocytosis. The entire complex is
then capable of being degraded in the acidic
intracellular environment of the cancer cell,
effuxing the free drug to cause cell death, while
the uPAR is recycled back to the cell surface.

Lidia Matesic
School of Chemistry,

University of Wollongong
NSW 2522, Australia

To date, the only successful targeting of a
toxin conjugated to PAI-2 has involved the use
of an a-emitting radiolabelled isotope (7!°Bi).
Investigations into conjugating other toxins, in
particular synthetic cytotoxins, are needed since
problems arise due to the radioactivity, cost,
availability and short half-lives of a-emitting
isotopes.

Isatin is a natural substance isolated from
the Isatis genus of plants and has many bi-
ological properties including anti-cancer activ-
ity. Our research group has discovered that
synthetic 5,7-dibrominated-N-alkylated isatin
derivatives exhibit nanomolar activity against
lymphoma (U937) and leukaemic (Jurkat) cell
lines and are a viable option for targeting the
uPA system. To trigger the release of the
isatin cytotoxin from PAI-2 inside the cancer
cell, an acid-sensitive linker group needs to be
incorporated between the isatin derivative and
PAI-2. We used imine-based linkers, which
have shown excellent potential for further de-
velopment. To study the acid-triggered release
mechanism of the isatin derivatives, they were
conjugated to an amino acid through an acid-
sensitive imine linker. The release of the cy-
totoxin was assessed through ultra-violet. vis-
ible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry and in vitro
cytotoxicity assays. The model drug conjugate
displayed stability at physiological pH (7.4) and
hydrolysed under acidic conditions (pH 4-5).
Work is currently underway on the development
of an isatin-PAI-2 conjugate linked through
an acid-sensitive imine linker. Our previous
investigations suggest this conjugate would be
a feasible option for the targeted delivery of
isatin cytotoxins, which would ultimately lead
to increased survival rates for cancer patients.

44 SCHOLARSHIPS 2010

Bioinformatic Analysis of Genetic Diversity
of Two Human Pathogens

KERENSA MCELROY
University of NSW

Background

My research focuses on applications of Next-
Generation Sequencing (NGS) to two human
pathogens, Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and P.
aeruginosa. In addition to their medical impor-
tance, these organisms were chosen to represent
two main pathogen classes — viruses and bacte-
ria — ensuring the techniques developed during
my PhD are broadly applicable.

NGS has great potential for understanding
pathogen evolution. By generating millions of
short ‘reads’, each revealing the sequence of
a tiny bit of DNA from one individual cell,
NGS provides a ‘snap shot’ of the pathogen
population’s genetic makeup. Combined with
mathematical models, this information can give
insights into pathogen evolution and population
structure, ultimately informing the design of
medical interventions.

HCV

HCV is a leading cause of liver disease, with
between 123 and 170 million people infected
worldwide. Standard sequencing techniques do
not generate enough data for in-depth exam-
ination of viral evolution. While NGS allows
sufficient data to be collected, its high error rate
makes distinguishing true genetic variation from
technical error difficult.

‘Cleaning’ NGS data during variant detec-
tion is therefore important. Random errors
can be removed using standard statistical tech-
niques. Errors can also be systematic, however.
After observing that systematic errors are often
present only in reads traversing the genome in
one of the two possible directions, I developed
a program which removes systematic errors by
checking the direction of reads covering po-
tential variants, discounting variants if there
are significantly more reads in one direction.
Using this approach, all 26 true variants in

Kerensa McElroy

control data were identified, with only one extra
‘false’ variant detected. By comparison, the
standard program VarScan detected over 60
false variants.

Mathematical analysis of ‘cleaned’ NGS
data from HCV patient samples revealed that
in most cases, infection started with less than
three founding viral variants. This is significant,
as characterising founding viruses is vital for the
development of effective vaccines. For patients
with chronic infection, the viral strain after im-
mune response was genetically distinct from the
founding strain, indicating that evolution from
the founder virus is driven by strong selective
pressure imposed by the immune system.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa

P. aeruginosa infection is the leading cause
of death for people with cystic fibrosis. Antibi-
otic resistance is rife, partly due to high genetic
diversity in the colonising population. Mecha-
nisms responsible for generating this diversity
are not, however, well understood.

Using a biofilm model of lung infection,
our lab has shown that the clinical P. aerug-
inosa isolate 18A develops greater phenotypic
diversity than the laboratory strain PAO1.
By analysing genetic diversity in ‘clean’ NGS
biofilm data (using the approach described
for HCV), we aim to identify drivers of di-
versification. Unexpectedly, while estimating
parameters for a model of diversification, the
clinical strain displayed a higher death rate than
the laboratory strain. Preliminary simulation
results show that in populations with a fixed
size limitation, elevated death rates can lead
to greater diversification. The clinical strain’s
high death rate may therefore contribute to its
elevated diversity, both in biofilm models and
in the constrained environment of the lung.

School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences,

University of NSW
NSW 2052, Australia

Journal €& Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 45-45, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/010045-1

Thesis Abstract: Peripheral Benzodiazepine
Receptors in Bone Tissue

WINNIE WAI-YING KAM

Abstract of a Thesis submitted for a Doctor of Philosophy
University of Sydney, 2009

Bone is a frequent site of metastasis for
many cancers. Positron emission tomogra-
phy (PET) using ['F]fluoride is commonly
applied for non-invasive quantification of bone
metabolism. Limitations in detection sensitiv-
ity/specificity and quantification methodology
of ['®F]fluoride-PET hamper precise charac-
terization of bone lesions. The aims of this
study were to understand the technical and
methodological limitations of bone metabolism
investigation by PET and to discover a suitable
receptor-ligand system for skeletal imaging —
for improving the accuracy of bone lesion eval-
uation thus giving invaluable information for
treatment planning and management.

['8F]fluoride-microPET (PET for small ani-
mal imaging) was used to image mice receiving
either a 4-day low calcium diet treatment to pro-
duce a high bone turnover condition, or 4-day
treatment by single 5mg/kg subcutaneous in-
jection of osteoprotegerin to produce a low bone
turnover condition. Based on the microPET
dataset, a gelatin phantom was prepared using
glass droppers filled with different levels of
radioactivity for simulating mouse femur in an
in vivo situation. This novel design allows
partial volume effect (PVE) and spillover to
be estimated separately. Simulated in vivo
bone data demonstrated that PVE and spillover
can cause 55% under or 126% over-estimation,
respectively, on activity measurement.

Peripheral benzodiazepine receptor (PBR)
predominantly expresses in cells with mononu-
clear phagocytic linkage and is usually up-
regulated in increased turnover conditions. The
continuous cell turnover of bone suggests PBR
expression. ‘Together with its specific ligand
— PK11195, they may be used as a receptor-
ligand imaging system for bone, as has been
used in the central nervous system. RT-PCR
and DNA sequencing confirmed PBR mRNA
expression in normal and abnormal mouse bone
tissues; and in osteoclasts and osteoblasts. Cy-
toplasmic localization of PBR in bone cells
was observed using a fluorescent PBR ligand

— NBD FGIN-1-27. PBR protein expression
obtained from receptor-film autoradiography
using [>H]PK11195 showed a significant differ-
ence between mice with high and low bone
turnover. The potential use of PBR/PK11195
as a receptor-ligand system for PET imag-
ing was investigated by simulating the signal
characteristics of PK11195 in microPET bone
data based on autoradiographic data and the
known spatial resolution of PET. Simulation
results demonstrated that PK11195/PET might
be sensitive to detect the difference in bone
turnover of the currently adopted mouse mod-
els, provided the contrast-to-noise ratio is in-
creased to a minimum of 1.23 and/or the spatial
resolution of the PET scanner is improved to
0.32 mm FWHM.

This is the first report on the expression
of PBR in small rodent bone tissue, and the
exploration of PBR/PK11195 as a receptor-
ligand system for skeletal imaging. A trend
to increase of PBR protein expression was
observed from the low to high bone turnover
states, suggesting its possible functional sig-
nificance in bone metabolism. PBR/PK11195
might be a potentially useful receptor-ligand
system for non-invasive PET skeletal imaging
if either a better ligand can be developed (i.e.
better target to background ratio) or a very
high spatial resolution PET scanner is used.
Exploitation of the findings in this work for
the in vivo evaluation of animal models of
bone disease awaits the development of both
improved radiopharmaceuticals and instrumen-
tation. Furthermore, the discovery of PBR in
bone cells opens an arena for examining the use
this receptor as therapeutic target in various
pathologies, including but not limited to bone.

Dr Winnie Wai-Ying KAM,

Department of Medical Radiation Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences

The University of Sydney, NSW 2142
Email: wik@ansto.gov.au or
winikam@gmail.com

Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. 144, p. 46-47, 2011

ISSN 0035-9173/11/010046-2

Biographical Memoir

Gavin Brown AO MA (StAnd) PhD (Newcastle, UK)
HonLLD (StAnd & Dundee) FAA CorrFRSE FRSN

1942 —

Professor Gavin Brown, the former Vice-
Chancellor and Principal of the University of
Sydney, and a strong supporter of the Royal
Society of NSW, was born on 27 February 1942
in Lundin Links, Fife, Scotland. He was Dux
of Madras College, St Andrews, where he was
awarded a Harkness Scholarship for study at the
University of St Andrews. He graduated with a
Master of Arts degree (1st Class Honours and
the Duncan Medal) in 1963. Professor Brown
was then awarded a Carnegie Scholarship which
enabled him to undertake postgraduate study at
the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne where
he was awarded a PhD in 1966.

Professor Brown began his academic career
at the University of Liverpool, where he be-
came Senior Lecturer in Mathematics. After
accepting the Chair of Pure Mathematics at
the University of New South Wales in 1975,
Professor Brown and his family emigrated to
Australia. At the University of New South
Wales, Professor Brown held a number of aca-
demic administrative posts, including Head of
the Department of Pure Mathematics, Head
of the School of Mathematics and, from 1989—
1992, Dean of the Faculty of Science.

During his time at UNSW, Professor
Brown’s mathematical research and, in partic-
ular, his work involving Fourier analysis, led
to the award of the Sir Edmund Whittaker
Memorial Prize and the Australian Mathemat-
ical Society Medal. He was also elected as a
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
and later became a member of its Council
(1992-1995) and Vice-President (1993-1994).
Professor Brown also held Visiting Professor-
ships at the University of Paris, the University
of Cambridge and the University of Washing-
ton.

From 1988-1993, Professor Brown was also
actively involved in the work of the Australian
Research Council. He chaired several of its

2010

funding committees and, during 1992-1993, was
a member of its Council.

Professor Brown moved to Adelaide in 1992
when he was appointed Deputy Vice-Chancellor
(Research) at the University of Adelaide. In
January 1994 he assumed the role of Vice-
Chancellor at that university and held the
position until he resigned on 30 June 1996.

Professor Brown held the position of Vice-
Chancellor and Principal at the University of
Sydney from 1 July 1996 to 10 July 2008.
During his tenure the University of Sydney
reasserted its leadership role in Australia dom-
inating each of the major Australian Research
Council funding categories and obtaining out-
standing National Health and Medical Research
Council results. Professor Brown was also
active in supporting the overall student expe-
rience and encouraging extra-curricular activ-
ity such as sport and debating. During this
period Sydney University won the Australian
Student Games for five consecutive years, pro-
vided many Olympian and Paralympian ath-
letes and won the World Student Debating
Championships.

The author of more than 100 research pa-
pers, Professor Brown remained an active math-
ematical researcher and was on the board of
several international journals. He was a regular
commentator on higher education policy and
has given invited presentations to international
meetings, including in China, Japan, Korea,
Thailand, Hong Kong, Germany, the USA and
Britain.

He was President of the international group
of universities, Academic Consortium 21, Vice-
Chair of the Association of Pacific Rim Uni-
versities and Foundation Chairman of the Go8
universities. He was on the executive of the
Business Higher Education Round Table and
the Global Foundation and served on the Aus-
tralian government’s Business, Industry and

Higher Education Collaboration Council.

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR AT

In 1997 Professor Brown was awarded an
honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of
St Andrews and in 2004 an honorary Doctor of
Laws by the University of Dundee. In January
2006 Professor Brown was appointed an Officer
of the Order of Australia. In March 2007
Professor Brown was elected a Corresponding
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and in
the same year he was awarded the Royal Society
of NSW Medal for services to science and the
Society.

In 2008 Professor Brown was appointed the
Inaugural Director of The Royal Institution of
Australia (RiAus), based in Adelaide. Ill health
caused his resignation from this position in mid-
2010.

John Hardie
July 2011

In March 2010 Her Excellency Ms Quentin
Bryce AC, Governor-General of the Common-
wealth of Australia and Chief Patron of the
Royal Society of NSW, presented Professor
Brown with a certificate marking his election as
one of the Society’s Inaugural Fellows, an hon-
our which he particularly cherished. Professor
Brown maintained a strong interest in the Soci-
ety throughout his tenure as Vice-Chancellor at
the University of Sydney and was instrumental
in ensuring its continuing existence through the
provision of accommodation and other support.

Professor Brown passed away on Christmas
Day 2010 in Adelaide. He will be sorely missed
by the Society.

Archibald Liversidge
Imperial Science under the Southern Cross

Roy MacLeod
Royal Society of New South Wales, in association with Sydney University Press
ISBN 9781920898809

When Archibald Liversidge first
arrived at Sydney University in
1872 as reader in Geology and

Assistant in the Laboratory he & ia ~ Archibald
had about ten students and two 4 / s ;
rooms in the main building. In [@ * Liversidge
1874 he became professor of geol- i

ogy and mineralogy and by 1879 "| is ee Im perial
he had persuaded the senate to [ 3 Cue
Science

open a faculty of science. He
under the

became its first dean in 1882.

In 1880 he visited Europe as a

trustee of the Australian Mu- | Southern
Cross

seum and his report helped to
establish the Industrial, ‘Tech-
nological and Sanitary Museum
which formed the basis of the
present Powerhouse Museum’s
collection. Liversidge also played
a major role in the setting up
of the Australasian Association
for the Advancement of Science
which held its first congress in
1888.

For anyone interested = in
Archibald Liversidge, his
contribution to crystallography, ~, ee 1
mineral chemistry, chemical Ro V iviaCLeé
geology, strategic minerals t
policy and a wider field of
colonial science.

To order your copy, please complete the form Liversidge Book Order Form available at:
http://nsw.royalsoc.org.au/books and return it to:

The Royal Society of NSW, Liversidge Book
Building H47, UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY,
NSW 2006, AUSTRALIA

or contact the Society:
Phone: 61 2 9036 5282

Fax: 61 2 9036 5309

Email: royalsocQusyd.edu.au

NOTICE TO AUTHORS

Details of submission guidelines can be found in
the on-line Style Guide for Authors at:
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Building H47 University of Sydney
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Journal and Proceedings of

The Royal Society of New South |

Volume 144 Parts 1 and 2

CONTENTS | ONIAN eile a

ni

EDITORIAL 9088 01 642

il

HECTOR, D.
Sydney’s Water Sewerage and Drainage System

HORA H., CASTILLO R., STAIT-GARDNER T., HOFFMANN D.H.H,
MILEY G.H. & LALOUSIS P.

Laser Acceleration up to Black Hole Values and B-Meson Decay

AWARDS 2010

The Clarke Medal 2010
Edgeworth David Medal 2010
Walter Burfitt Prize 2010

APPLICATIONS FOR AWARDS 2011

SCHOLARSHIPS 2010 & APPLICATIONS FOR 2011 ee
Dennis Black, Lidia Matesic & Kerensa McElroy

ABSTRACTS OF THESES

KAM, W. Thesis Abstract: Peripheral raed ohare eae Receptors i in
Bone Tissue

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

Gavin Brown

PUBLICATIONS

Archibald Liversidge: Imperial Science under the Southern Cross

ISSN 0035-9173