Member for Wollongong Noreen Hay has called on Sydney Water to explain why Wollongong's waste treatment plant was placed on bypass this week, allowing untreated water including sewage onto Illawarra beaches.
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After heavy downpours, Sydney Water declared it had placed the Wollongong treatment plant on "bypass" on Tuesday. Beachwatch advised against swimming at Bombo and Kiama beaches.
Ms Hay yesterday rejected the NSW government's assertion heavy rain was solely to blame, saying the "situation was totally unsatisfactory".
She said $42 million of a $215 million upgrade to the Wollongong plant in 2005-06 went to ensuring discharges onto Illawarra beaches would not occur "except in extreme extenuating circumstances".
"I reject the suggestion that [Tuesday's] rain was an extreme occurrence, and I call on Sydney Water to give a full explanation."
Ms Hay said 40 million litres of water passes through the treatment plant every day, and the activation of the bypass in this situation was "totally unsatisfactory".
Another two bypasses were announced yesterday, one at Warriewood on Sydney's North Shore, and Cronulla.
"In a time of heightened environmental awareness, having beaches closed up and down the coast due to sewage is a disgrace, and is one the community will not accept."
Ms Hay also took issue with Sydney Water's announcement of the bypasses on Twitter which she said was "commonly used by the younger generations".
"Many of our coastal towns have large numbers of retirees and mature-aged people," Ms Hay said, and she did not believe tweeting was the appropriate form of communication for such a serious event.
In eight weeks, Sydney Water has put five waste water treatment plants on bypass, allowing hundreds of thousands of litres of untreated water including sewage overflows on to Sydney and Illawarra beaches.
Opposition Minister for Water Walt Secord said the plants were supposed to have been upgraded to respond to such incidents.
Sydney Water collects and treats more than 1.3 billion litres of wastewater from 1.7 million homes and businesses each day in Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains.
Eric De Rooy from Sydney Water said the plants were doing what they were meant to do.
"These plants are designed to take about four times the average dry weather flow, and when it really rains heavily we get a lot of water coming into the sewerage system, the plants are then designed to bypass some of that flow to allow it to be discharged," he said.
At the treatment plants, wastewater is treated before being reused or discharged to rivers or oceans in accordance with strict licence conditions issued by the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
DIRTY WATER
Opposition Minister for Water Walt Secord cited official notifications for bypasses of wastewater treatment plants on:
April 3 – Illawarra (Wollongong)
March 1 – Shellharbour
March 1 – Bombo
March 1 – Warriewood
March 1 – Cronulla
February 4 – Wollongong
