I am appalled at the ignorance of BSC’s department of compliances.
I made them aware of a vehicle parked illegally in Cowper Street, Byron Bay four months ago.
There is a person sleeping in the vehicle, Council has signage there stating no camping, and parking requirements.
Council’s compliance staff responded by issuing a work order but nothing happened. I contacted the compliance office again and spoke to a staffer who told me that compliance officers would not deal with this man as he is antisocial and homeless.
The staffer also told me the police would not get involved for the same reason.
So while people are being fined for parking infringements or camping in their cars, this person is being ignored by BSC’s compliance department for doing exactly that.
The concerns over the Clarkes Beach stormwater discharge onto the beach is warranted. The wetlands constructed in Middleton Street unless maintained will not supply a great quality of effluent. There are already signs of this in those supposed wetlands now. My experience with wetlands was managing the wetlands at West Byron STP, [sewage treatment plant]constructed wetlands must be maintained which this current Council executive fails to understand.
The continued claim of ‘wetlands’ being at Ocean Shores STP is quite untrue. Prior to the 1995 interim upgrade of Ocean Shores STP a serpentine channel was dug with an excavator. The purpose of this channel was to expose the effluent leaving the plant to longer exposure to the sun’s UV rays. In the 1995 upgrade a mechanical UV disinfection plant was installed for the treated effluent leaving the plant to flow through and be disinfected. The serpentine channel is in such a terrible state that it is actually recontaminating the treated effluent leaving the plant and entering the Brunswick River.
While sitting on the WW&SAC [Waste Water & Sewer Advisory Committee] a drawing of the OS plant was submitted which showed the effluent leaving the serpentine channel was being pumped back through the UV disinfection plant to remove fecal coliforms (FCs) picked up in the serpentine channel.
This was actually requiring the UV plant to be taken offline once a year due to algae, and be cleaned with chlorine.
While I was relieving as the acting coordinator in water and recycling in 2004 the operator in charge of OS STP expressed concerns about the serpentine channel. I had a test done at Council’s laboratory on effluent leaving the UV plant and effluent leaving the serpentine channel.
The effluent leaving the UV plant was nil for FCs, the effluent leaving the serpentine channel was extremely high in FCs. The serpentine channel should have been cut off then.
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. 
