Water will be initially reused on the local football oval, but there could be future opportunities to expand on the system for the benefit of the town.

The Northern Areas Council have been building the project with help from the Local Government Association of South Australia.

Council’s environmental services manager Alan Thomson said they would no longer use their two pond system – a facilitative and evaporative lagoon.

“Instead of having a pond system and allowing everything to evaporate, the water will be pre-treated and stored, ready to return to the town,” he said.

The project costs $1.5 million, but Mr Thomson said if they had wanted to expand the pond system it would have been expensive.

Site manager Jason Ridley said one of the storage lagoons was open and that the plant would soon be commissioned.

“The water reuse plant will run on a fully automated system,” he said.

“The scheme will be linked to the current ponds for emergency storage.”

Due to the rain last week, Mr Ridley and has team lost four days of work.

“We have had the site broken into and equipment was stolen,” he said.

“It was valued between $20-30,000.”

The treatment process involves the water being aerated.

An enormous amount of air is injected into the water and the sludge is drained off.

Then it goes to be stored in the pond.

The project has involved two new dams being built on the outskirts of the town.

They can hold 17-megalitres of water.