Susan Skyvington, Mullumbimby
The vote to adopt a Low-Pressure Pump Sewerage System points to a lack of corporate memory. Council’s own New Brighton study concluded that compared to Vacuum Systems, ‘Pressure Pump Systems are more prone to blockage by large solids and foreign objects, and the small-bore rising mains have the potential to block… [which] means a higher maintenance requirement with consequently lower reliability’.
Pressure pumps have proven to be problematic and expensive: Some New Brighton homes have had to have their pump replaced three times since installation. Residents have been horrified to learn they have been paying for the power to these pumps. During heavy rain, the pump sounds an alarm for the resident to turn it off.
A Vacuum System has been costed at $15–18,000 per house compared to a Pressure Pump System at $25,000 per house.
Four months after mayor Simon Richardson stated in an email that ‘Staff have acknowledged the deficiencies in some of the pipes… The vacuum process has shown itself very cost efficient, more reliable and more effective’, Council voted for the low-pressure pump system.
Ratepayers deserve a comparative cost benefit study of the two systems. To spend millions of dollars on a ‘trial’ of a low-pressure pump system on 20–30 houses is nonsense – it is pre-empting the retrofitting of the same elsewhere across town.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
