For decades the Evans Head Sewerage Treatment Plant (STP) has been dumping effluent into Salty Lagoon in Broadwater National Park. Rich in nutrients and other contaminants, the lake succumbed to these pollutants with a massive fish and bird kill in 2005.
Following national coverage and substantial public pressure the STP was upgraded and the quality of the effluent improved but the legacy effects of the huge nutrient burden on the lagoon was never tackled. The lake remains carpeted with toxic sludge leading to intermittent algal blooms and a continuing fish kill problem.
Richmond Valley Council, the EPA and National Parks tried to mask this problem by blocking off the connection between the lagoon and its connecting creek to the ocean so that the lagoon remained permanently full in the hope of arresting the kills.
However, this million dollar+ ‘experiment’ failed when a predictable, erosive ‘head-cut/channel’ developed between the lagoon and the creek, returning the lagoon to emptying and filling and saltwater intrusion, its natural state, and risk of fish and bird kill.
In the Final Evaluation Report of the failed closure experiment, it was recommended Council ‘develop a long term ( >15 years) plan for the STP, including a clear discharge strategy’.
It also recommended Council ‘continue to liaise with regulatory agencies, Aboriginal stakeholders and other members of the community regarding future management of Salty Lagoon’ and that if there was ‘increased discharge volumes or pollutant levels’ they should consider ‘potential impacts on the Salty Lagoon system during the planning phase’.
Richmond Valley Council is now well into the planning phase for an upgraded STP which will double its capacity from 5,500 to 11,000 Equivalent Persons to accommodate new developments such as the Iron Gates, yet Council ignores the community.
Evans Head Residents for Sustainable Development
While Council has no legal obligation to involve the community in the review process, you might have thought it sensible to include us, most particularly because we had shown in the past that Council’s plans with regard to sewage management were not only grossly deficient but sometimes just plain dumb.
For example, Council wanted to dump effluent at the mouth of the Evans River on the ebb tide but the community showed the effluent would wash backwards and forwards on its main surfing beach and not out to sea. Council abandoned the project.
The community also showed the release of effluent on the Evans Head Memorial Aerodrome would not only contaminate waterways and destroy the aerodrome’s drainage system but that the consultant had not done any field work and relied entirely on a desktop assessment which had significant errors of fact. Council abandoned that project.
Richmond Valley Council needs to start listening to the community. It has an obligation under its Community Engagement Strategy to do so. It is time for Council to walk the talk.
Council must release its completed Review of Environmental Factors (REF) so we can assess its review of environmental, social, and economic impacts of the Stage 2 expansion of the STP and whether or not the Salty Lagoon legacy problem has been tackled.
Kicking the can down the road, for future generations to deal with
In our view the Salty Lagoon contamination issue illustrates perfectly the limits of environmental systems and the problem of unlimited growth. Decades of effluent discharge have resulted in a heavy accumulation of nutrient-rich sludge. Simply changing the plumbing or modifying the landscape without addressing the underlying problem of contaminants is ‘kicking the can down the road’.
The argument that ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’ ignores systemic accumulation; every ecosystem has a carrying capacity limit.
When we add continuous population growth and coastal expansion to this equation, the mass balance of chemicals entering the ecosystem rises exponentially, regardless of how ‘diluted’ it is at the discharge pipe. It all adds up!
Historically, licences to pollute from the EPA were calculated on how much pollution a lake or river could absorb before collapsing, hardly an effective long-term strategy! A sustainable framework requires us to limit the growth of the input rather than trying to manage the crisis of the output such as that seen at Salty Lagoon.
Ultimately, the persistent ecological instability at Evans Head shows that short term measures such as closing artificial channels or upgrading to basic tertiary filters only alters where or how fast the degradation occurs; they do not alter the reality of chemical accumulation or the need for advanced technologies and management to treat at source.
We believe Council is keeping the REF from us as it is still operating off an old-fashioned model for effluent management which fails to take account of limits to growth and associated costs for doing things according to the rules of Ecologically Sustainable Development enshrined in so much of our legislation. And you can bet Salty Lagoon has been left out of the equation!
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