It’s 2015 – Welcome back to the office!

year of the sheep

Almost everyone at the Essential Environmental office is back (except for those who seem to be enjoying themselves too much in Europe!) and given it is the Chinese Year of the Sheep, we wish ewe all a woolly safe and happy start to 2015! (Too much, too early?)

The couple of weeks leading up to the end of 2014 was hectic indeed as the final bits and pieces of reports were compiled and New WAter Ways hosted another very successful bus tour. This last tour in early December took around 50 members of the water industry and government on a Water Sensitive Urban Design tour of key sites in the north of the Perth’s metro area, within the City of Swan. Grant MacKinnon from City of Swan provided a well informed commentary on the key sites, demonstrating how structural and non-structural WSUD solutions could be integrated into public open spaces (POS), and what landscape, construction, implementation and maintenance issues required consideration.  The tour group had the opportunity to visit restored creeklines transformed into living streams, detention basins within useable POS, and grassed swales connected to wetlands and along roads via flush kerbing. All in all a very successful event to end 2014!

By the time late December rolled around and projects were wrapped up staff were rewarded with a paddle on the Swan River and some food and drinks on the Barrack St Jetty as part of the office Christmas Party. Unbelievably no one fell into the river, even those who tried their hand at stand up paddle boarding for the first time!

Now that we’re back the Essential Environmental team is ready with piles of enthusiasm to attack new projects and provide effective water and environmental management solutions wherever they are needed. Keep your eyes peeled on our blog to find out what 2015 brings the Essential team!