The Goldfields Water Supply (GWS) in Western Australia was a large public works project of global significance when it was built between 1896 and 1903. The project was the brainchild of Charles Yelverton O'Connor, an Irish civil engineer who came to Western Australia following a long and successful public works career in New Zealand. His deputy was Thomas Hodgson, a hydraulics engineer from Melbourne, Victoria. Together they designed and constructed a water supply system that consisted of, what was then the highest dam in the southern hemisphere, eight steam-driven pumping stations and 565 km (350 mi) of 760 mm (30 inch) diameter steel pipe that was capable of delivering 25.5 Ml/day (5.6 Mgal/day) of fresh water from the coastal city of Perth to the burgeoning gold mining town of Kalgoorlie.
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