After 20-plus years working as a sewer operator, I witnessed exactly what Cr Dey is referring to as to the amount of consultants used by Byron Shire Council (BSC) staff and engineers.
I witnessed on a number of occasions consulting companies being engaged to solve problems that should have been solved internally by Council staff.
I was asked by a Council engineer in the early nineties to go from South Byron STP to the West Byron STP to identify a problem with the plant as the EPA had stated they were going to start fining the council if the problem was not solved.
I took over the running of West Byron STP. I identified the cause of the problem through testing as being that the surface aerators were not capable of supplying enough dissolved oxygen for the plant to nitrify (convert ammonia). I submitted three written reports.
One of BSC’s’s water and sewer engineers visited West Byron on three occasions telling me I was wrong. On one occasion he brought three consultants from Queensland who he claimed were experts in the field of wastewater treatment to also tell me I was wrong.
After eight months of nothing being done to solve this problem a consultant from GH&D arrived one day and told me he had been asked to come down and help solve the problem. He asked me what was happening to which I stated the plant was under aerating resulting in high ammonias leaving the plant and breaching its EPA licence.
Then the consultant stated ‘your process monitoring shows that’. The result was that GH&D were engaged to solve the problem.
GH&D called for tenders for new surface aerators, a company called Bi Jazz won the tender and removed the three surface aerators and installed two new surface aerators. Within two weeks the plant which was decanting 43 Mgs/litre of ammonia was reduced to 2 Mgs/litre of ammonia.
This could have been completely done by BSC Water & Recycling without incurring a large consultant’s bill, rather than solving a problem that we are meant to be experts in.
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