Waste water treatment plant

The suburb is best known as the location of the Bolivar Waste Water Treatment Plant.^[10] Bolivar is the largest of three SA Water sewage treatment plants in metropolitan Adelaide and the largest in South Australia. It produces recycled water which is provided to farmers on the Adelaide Plains near Virginia. Methane is collected and used to generate electricity. Bolivar produces 35,000 tonnes of biosolids which have been supplied to farmers since the 1960s.^[12] Bolivar processes 60% of metropolitan Adelaide's raw sewage. The biogas produced in the treatment process is used to generate 85% of the facility's annual electricity requirements. Twenty-five gigawatt-hours of electricity is generated by the natural gas-powered reciprocating engines each year. It treats 135 million litres of water per day. Water from the northwestern suburbs is treated separately as it tends to be more saline and not suitable for reuse in irrigation.^[13] Waste water that is not used for irrigation of market gardens or reticulation at Mawson Lakes is discharged via an open outfall channel 11 km long near St Kilda at the northern end of the Barker Inlet. Water to be reused passes through an additional Dissolved Air Flotation and Filtration (DAFF) plant commissioned in 1999, and Mawson Lakes reticulated water also receives additional chlorination. The High Salinity Waste Water Treatment Plant is on the Bolivar site, but otherwise a separate facility that replaced a facility at Port Adelaide in 2005. There is a dedicated pumped trunk sewer delivering the raw sewage from the former site to Bolivar. it is 17 km long with a diameter of 900mm.^[14]

Bolivar's treated wastewater contains pollutants that enter the Port River estuary. In 2018-19 the most significant pollutants discharged to the marine environment were (by mass): nitrogen (320 tonnes), phosphorus (81 tonnes), fluoride (26 tonnes), boron (19 tonnes), ammonia (12 tonnes) and zinc (2.2 tonnes).^[15]

Parks

The southern boundary of the suburb runs along the Little Para River and includes greenspace and a shared path along the river.^[10]

Rail

The Adelaide-Port Augusta railway line had a station named Bolivar, which was north of where the Northern Expressway now crosses the railway (and several kilometres from Bolivar). There is still a crossing loop in the vicinity.

Roads

Bolivar is serviced by Port Wakefield Road, part of the National Highway,^[10] and the North–South Motorway, Adelaide's under construction major north–south road route.

Air

On the 13 March 1910 during taxiing test by Mr.Wittber the plane (A Bleriot monoplane) became unexpectantly airborne in a hop caused by a gust of wind known as the Wittber hop,^[16] four days later Frederic Custance made Australia's first monoplane flight on the 17 March 1910 in a paddock in Bolivar, South Australia. ^[17]

In the depicted scene, the City of Salisbury celebrates its heritage with a plaque and mosaic commemorating the Wittber Hop, highlighting the achievements of Australia's first pioneering flights.^[18]