Pressure mounts on Wannon Water to end ocean outfall
Dirty effluent water off Thunder Point, from the Wannon Water treatment plant. Image: Goodwill Nurdle Hunting.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Big news is filtering out of the EPA today which could see Wannon Water forced to lift its game so these “dirty decants” into the ocean off Thunder Point are soon a thing of the past.
The push is to produce only what is called “Class A” water which is not piped into the ocean but – wait for it – reused and recycled.
The fabulous news is that the independent consultant hired by the EPA to look at the public response to the $40m WW plant upgrade agrees!
Agrees!
The consultant is recommending that the EPA requires Wannon Water to move to a Class A/tertiary system within five years.
Five years!
Sorry for the exclamation marks, but I am genuinely excited, because this is a major breakthrough in what has been a very long battle, by some very dedicated people, to bring our city into the 21st century.
If the W’bool City Council is serious about its 2040 Plan, then it needs to demand this requirement too.
I have learned that Class A water is good for just about everything other than a refreshing drink.
It is safe for human contact.
You can wash your clothes in it, water your vegies with it, irrigate your lawn with it….
How very modern and forward thinking, given we are the driest continent on the entire frying pan of the planet.
As it sits, Wannon Water plans to spend $40m expanding the treatment plant so that it can do more of the same for the next 20 years – ie. just keep pumping effluent into the ocean.
To go for Class A will cost another $30m to $40m, which for something which will set us up for the next 20 years, sounds like a good deal to me.
Wannon Water has already put the heebies into people by saying it would also cost an extra $2m to $3m each year to run and customer bills might rise.
When I see the sort of money swishing around the big dairy and meat companies that use our treatment plant, that sounds like small change.
They can afford it and they should pay most of it.
There are 19 recommendations in the report which has dropped onto the EPA website, and I am yet to fully digest them all, but boy, this one – #7 in the 19 – is a ripper.
People power is working and that is why I love, through the Terrier, being a part of it.
By the way, thankyou SO MUCH to everyone who has tipped into the tip jar. I will have an update on all days that have a T in them…..which means, tomorrow!
Zero support for Wannon Water sewage treatment plans
A “dirty dump” of effluent from the Wannon Water treatment plant released off Thunder Point last month. Image: Good Will Nurdle Hunting.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Let’s end the week on a high note!
It turns out lots of people really do care about the treated sewage being pumped into the sea off Thunder Point by Wannon Water, with an incredible 83 submissions to the EPA about plans to keep doing more of the same for the next 20 years.
83!
Wow! This is fabulous! The overwhelming majority of responses were AGAINST the proposed plant upgrade that will double the capacity of the plant, using the same technology and methods which are already considered out of date.
In fact of the 78 people who answered the question of whether they support the plan as is, not one person said yes.
Thirteen said they would support it with changes and 65 were firmly against.
The people have spoken – now the question is whether Wannon Water will listen.
Because there were so many responses, the EPA will hold an online conference to hear more about the community concerns and ways they may be resolved.
(Details on when this will be held are yet to be announced.)
Thankyou to Colleen Hughson and all of the Good Will Nurdle Hunting team, the Beach Patrol 3280 team and the Clean Ocean Foundation for helping us to get our %#%@! together and have a say.
Wannon Water sewage plant upgrade must reach for the stars
Betty Boop has nothing to do with Wannon Water and its treatment plant, but I am rolling out some stars to make sewage sexy.
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Tonight I am rolling out the red carpet to make sewage sexy and effluent exotic, because we need to talk about the planned upgrade of the Wannon Water treatment plant.
This upgrade will service Warrnambool for the next 20 years.
I want to explain, as best I can, why before 1 July (when the chance for public comment closes) we need to ask for better from Wannon Water, to aim higher, and to stop using our beautiful ocean like a giant Maytag washing machine.
As it stands, Wannon Water plans to spend $40 million expanding the treatment works at the end of Elliot St, so it can double its capacity to eventually handle around 30 million litres of sewage a day by 2040.
This Wannon Water production should be a blockbuster starring the Brad Pitt of shit and the Betty Boop of poop and the Scarlett Johansson of industrial trade waste, except it isn’t even close.
It’s more of a B-grade movie starring faded stars of yesteryear.
That’s because the $40 million plan is the cheapest option and will not change the way our sewage is treated in the future from how it is treated now.
The ‘mixed liquor’ of treated sewage that entered the ocean off Thunder Point last month due to problems at the Wannon Water plant. Image: Beach Patrol 3280.
This means, in 2040, we will still be pouring millions of gallons of treated sewage/effluent into the ocean off Thunder Point using exactly the same treatment system as in 2020.
The COF is lobbying to have all waste water discharged to the ocean at a Class A+ standard by 2030 to reduce ocean pollution.
Warrnambool is not even at Class A now, and won’t be at Class A after the upgrade, let alone at A+.
Worse, our system often doesn’t work, as can been seen by what is called the “mixed liquor” (which sounds sexy, but is the revolting foamy brown stuff) which still turns up off Thunder Point.
What we should be aiming for by 2040 is clean, treated effluent that can be recycled and reused and doesn’t have to go into the ocean at all, but if it does, at least make sure it is not full of pollutants like phosphorous.
Right, how do I make phosphorous sexy?
Well, here is a photo of a very sexy Brad Pitt, followed by a sexy Wannon Water graph that shows that Warrnambool Cheese and Butter – the burgundy colour – producing a Pitt-load of phosphorous, nitrogen and ammonia that goes into our ocean:
Warrnambool Cheese and Butter is owned by the Canadian giant, Saputo, which turns over about $11 billion a year.
Perhaps we could ask Saputo to throw a few million toward helping us make it to the Hollywood A-list by making sure our ocean had the cleanest effluent possible?
Or maybe Saputo could spend a few million dollars improving the treatment of its own waste before it makes anywhere near Wannon Water and into the ocean?
Another of the problems from this dairy trade waste is it’s extremely salty, which means the effluent water cannot be reused easily without burning everything along the way.
I found it astonishing that of the millions of litres of waste water produced by the Warrnambool treatment plant – 15 million litres a day – only 60 million litres a year is reused, and only at the plant itself.
In the scheme of things, 60m litres a year is an eye dropper full and the rest goes into the sea to swirl around in nature’s Maytag: not a drop is recycled or reused outside of the Elliot St treatment plant.
Wannon Water says it has investigated reuse projects and also tried to find customers for recycled water, but without success, no doubt because of the high salt content among other things.
So we have a treatment plant within walking distance of the Warrnambool Golf Course* and the new Younger St housing estate, yet no recycled waste water from the treatment plant is being used at either. (*Clarification: water was diverted from Fonterra, before it reached the plant, for use on the golf course. Please see comment from Dave at the end of this story).
Good grief.
If this is “green” Warrnambool under the Warrnambool City Council 2040 plan, then we have a long, long way to go.
Of course it all comes down to dollars and who pays.
People, naturally, become nervous when Wannon Water talks about higher customer bills to cover the cost, but here is a photo of a beautiful Scarlett Johansson, under which we can see a beautiful graph showing the costs.
You will see that between the various options, it is really not that different – a range of 1.16% to 1.53%.
Is Wannon Water really that strapped for cash or ways to find it?
How bizarre that Lyndoch Living – a not-for-profit, community owned aged care home – can roll out out a $100 million masterplan, yet Wannon Water can only come up with $40 million for a major treatment plant expansion to service our city for the next 20 years.
Water treatment is complex, but I know we can do better than this, our kids deserve to inherit something better than this, and the Clean Ocean Foundation is right behind Warrnambool in its quest to ask for more.
The COF will appear in the blockbuster sequel to this story tomorrow night, offering us non-science-minded folk some starting tips for our submissions.
Holy shi*! Why is brown gunk being pumped into our ocean?
Carol Altmann – The Terrier
Dirty dumps: isn’t it incredible to think that in 2020 we still have waves of brown, creamy, sewage water turning up at Thunder Point from the Wannon Water treatment plant?
The video above, captured by Good Will Nurdle Hunting, was taken from above the outfall pipe off Shelly Beach last Saturday, May 30.
Another gorgeous brown tide was also crashing onto the rocks on Tuesday 26 May.
It also happened on 17 March, which means there have been at least three such “dirty dumps” into the ocean in the past three months.
The reason is that the Wannon Water plant is full to the gills.
It can’t take much more of our gunk – most of which comes from three main industries – and the system is failing more than it should.
The good news – if you could call it that – is that, according to Wannon Water GM Service Delivery Ian Bail, these brown waves haven’t included raw sewage. (ie. We won’t see a cameo appearance of our personal contributions.)
The other good news is that we have a chance to put things right.
Yuk: The brown treated sewage water off Thunder Point on May 30, having been pumped into the from the Wannon Water treatment plant. Image: Good Will Nurdle Hunting.
The EPA is asking for public feedback on a $40 million upgrade of the treatment plant that will double its capacity – 30 million litres of waste water a day.
Hooray, I thought, we will soon have the best treatment plant possible.
Wrong.
The $40m upgrade will see more of the same technology that is used now.
For the next 20 years we will continue to have a “secondary” treatment system, and not a “tertiary” treatment system.
We will remain stuck in Year 10 at WooBoo High while other towns along our coastline have long moved on to Melbourne University.
How does a “Year 10 system” (as I like to call it) that still shoots shite into the ocean fit with our claim to be a clean, green, cosmopolitan, hydrogen-fuelled-FOGO-climate-change-emergency-aware Warrnambool?
It makes a mockery of that claim.
We can’t just keep saying we want to change the way we do things: we have to actually CHANGE.
But there is a problem.
The cut-off date for us to have a say via the EPA about this treatment plant upgrade is 17 June.
The EPA told me today that this deadline had already been extended by a week because of C19.
A week is not long enough. We need more time.
I don’t know about you, but I still don’t know what day it is and I haven’t been home schooling kids while trying to work, cook, clean the house and keep up with the rates notices.
We need more time to make sure we have our say and to get this absolutely right – to demand more for our coastline – and I hope the EPA agrees.
Because there were so many responses, the EPA will hold an online conference to hear more about the community concerns and ways they may be resolved.
