Jim is the Operations and Maintenance Contractor for Anabranch Water. An A-Grade mechanic, he started as the contractor in November 2014 and came to Anabranch Water from Western Murray Irrigation, where he had been involved in the development of the O&M for the pumps & pipeline infrastructure. Now he’s on call for any operational needs.
 
“I’ll take any calls from the board or the farmers if they’ve got any issues they want me to have a look at. I’ll check out tanks and pumps and arrange for any repairs and supervise them, monthly checks of the pump stations and any other jobs that are required
 
An Anabranch native, Jim grew up on Toora Station and gained his qualifications as a mechanic before moving into water infrastructure. One of his early roles with Anabranch Water was to audit and map all of the assets accurately, numbering all of the assets with unique identifiers, and cataloguing the system.
 
“There were no asset markings in the original in Anabranch Water paper plans. So we came up with a system where went through and GPS located all the infrastructure and pipe locations, and numbered every single asset sequentially (using every 2nd number to allow for future infrastructure) so it can be easily identified, and you can always tell exactly where in the system an issue is occurring”
 
Jim enjoys the work for Anabranch Water, and the contracted hours suit him well, though the scale of the project can mean that the kilometers add up over the year.
 
“There’s a lot of travel in the job. A meter reading can be 1,000-1,400km, there’s currently 83 meters on the system and you have to do that every 4 months – you can’t do them all in one day, it usually takes up to 3 days. But it’s a good job, it works well.”