Council is stating that breaches of licence conditions, in part, justifies spending $10m on transferring raw sewage from Ocean Shores Sewerage Treatment Plant (OS STP) to Brunswick Valley STP. (BV STP). It is argued this is a lesser cost than the $29m involved in upgrading the OS STP.
Data from the whole of the catchment area for OS STP including the plant itself, brings into question this proposed transfer. An analysis of 129 pieces of information dealing with breaches of the OS STP licence over an 18 year period showed 17.05 per cent related to contamination from the serpentine channel, 34.11 per cent came from problems in the collection system (pipes, pump stations, inflow in high rainfall etc), 44.96 per cent came from operational failures (operator error, problems with chemical dosing and poor aeration), poor maintenance, whilst 3.88 per cent came from ‘other’ problems.
This does not justify closure of OS STP. Instead, what is shown is Council’s failures in maintenance, monitoring the treatment process and the urgent need to fix the collection system. Together, these represent 81.07 per cent of the breaches of the licence!
It rests with councillors to demand copies of the maintenance records for OS STP and its catchment over, say, the last 10 years, to determine whether or not this public asset has been neglected.
Council has also refused to acknowledge the serpentine channel and instead insists on calling it a ‘wetland.’ It was never designed nor constructed to function as a wetland. It is the source of contamination of treated effluent that is currently passed from the UV disinfection plant through the channel and back again through the disinfection plant! This serpentine channel needs to be cut off from the UV disinfection plant.
The BV STP is a biological reduction plant and cannot be ‘upgraded’. Instead it has to be duplicated. In the minutes of the Wastewater Steering Committee there is reference to ‘upgrading’ BV STP as part of the proposed transfer. No cost, or expectation of what is to be ‘upgraded’, is given. I can only assume the proposed ‘upgrade’ is the notion of building a massive holding pond for raw sewage during rainfall events.
However, BV STP continues to have problems with its hydraulic load during wet weather events because the infiltration of stormwater has not been resolved. Not only will the transfer of raw sewage and stormwater from OS STP, particularly during wet weather, compound BV STP’s problem, but I have yet to find out how Council intends to address any overflow of raw sewage from the pond into the river.
It is obvious that the collection systems of each of the STPs are urgently in need of fixing! STPs should not be treating stormwater – without which the plants would be working like clockwork.
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