Page 21 - City of Cessnock Water Supply and Sewerage Service Utility

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The Lochinvar Reservoir is built on Lot 26, Lochinvar Estate (DP155246) Parish
of Gosforth, adjacent to St. Helena's Resturant on a deviation of the New
England Highway, Lochinvar. It was constructed in the late 1940's. It is of
steel construction and of circular design with a diameter of forty-two (42') feet.
It is built on the ground level, on a one foot thick concrete base. The
reservoir has a depth of nineteen (19') feet when full and this level is 186 feet
above sea level.

The Harper's Hill Reservoir is also adjacent to the New England Highway
on the top of the rise on the Singleton side of the Allandale Road junction.
This reservoir is situated on part of portion 66, Parish of Branxton. It was
part of the Commonwealth project for the construction of the Greta Army Camp in
1938. This reservoir has a holding capacity of 197,972 gallons. It too is of
steel construction .and is of circular design with a diameter of fifty-one (51 1 ) feet~
It has a depth of twenty (20') feet when full, this level is 406 feet above sea
level. The reservoir is built on ground level, on a one foot thick concrete base.
To supplement the supply and pressure of water for the camp a small elevated tank
of twenty thousand (20,000) gallons was constructed on the southern side of
Camp Road, Greta on Molly Morgan Hill. A small booster water pumping station
was built near the St. Joseph's Convent at Lochinvar. After the Commonwealth
closed the migrant camp, which had made use of the Army Buildings and Facilities
in the early 1960's the small booster pumping station and the Molly Morgan Hill
tank became obsolete and were gradually eliminated from the Greta-Branxton water
system.

In July 1948, the first section of the original pipeline from the
Rutherford Reservoir towards the Burlington Mills factory on the New England
Highway was increased in size to a twenty-inch (20") main to cater for the added
demand of the new Greta-Branxton-North Rothbury reticulation. To improve further
this same supply, particularly during hot weather periods a boosting plant was
installed on the main-line from Rutherford Reservoir near the Ana_ bah· Road
Junction with the New England Highway. The boosting piant was completed in
late 1951.

The floods in the Hunter Valley in June 1949 caused considerable damage
in many areas of the H.D.W.B. However in the Cessnock Division, the only
danger of flooding was at the Main Cessnock Sewerage Pumping Station in Melton
Street, Cessnock. The electric motors were removed as a precautionary measure.
When the flood waters receded the Cessnock Sewerage Pumping Station was re-
commissioned. The continued presence of flood surface waters in the swamps
between Buttai and Heddon Greta delayed until August 1951 the laying of new
twenty-inch (20") cast-iron cement-lined pipes to replace the run of wood-stave
pipes.