Federation Council have come clean about unlicensed discharges of treated effluent from the Corowa Sewage Treatment Plant in 2023.
For a period of eight days between late July and early August, concerned residents observed murky coloured water being discharged from a pipe near Cropper’s Lagoon.
Tracing the source of the discharge, residents photographed what they believed to be sewage treatment overflow and reported the incident to the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
“We had to send the complaint and photos to the EPA twice,” a concerned resident who lives nearby the alleged discharge site stated.
“Because, apparently, they got lost the first time but they still refused to come when we first reported it, claiming that it was too far to travel from Wagga Wagga.”
The NSW EPA did conduct a thorough investigation into the incident with the results being reported to Federation Council recently along with an official caution notice that General Manager Adrain Butler declared at Tuesday’s council meeting.
“Even though this incident occurred last year, the community are, rightly, concerned about what occurred,” Mr Butler said.
“The NSW EPA have now finalised their investigation and issued the council with an official caution that includes a number of new requirements, as it should, for how we as a council manage the current facility.
“A lot of things have already changed with regard to how the site is tested and monitored and we are pleased that there will be good monitoring going forward.”
Cr Bourke asked for a detailed explanation of what had actually happened in July 2023 with clarity and elaboration on the incident and how effluent is currently treated for the benefit of the public which council’s director of engineering Theo Panagopoulos address in detail.
“The results of consultation for the proposed new treatment facility and further detailed reporting on the existing plant will be available in May,” Mr Panagopoulos said.
“We know that tertiary treatment will be required for us to be able to discharge into the river system where the current plant is just a series of sediment ponds and secondary treatments that allows us to irrigate the tree lot and flood area as an approved method to release water from the dams.
“When this incident occurred, we had experienced an unusually wet three year period that saw the dams over capacity and valves were left open that should not have been. It was unfortunate but has also been a good learning opportunity for us,” he further explained.
“The team have done a mountain of work since then with a system that was constructed in the 1930s and is now archaic to get the levels back to under 70 percent capacity which is important, because these levels are our insurance policy against future rain events.”
Mr Panagopoulos continued with additional details of works that been undertaken to secure equipment and ensure that valves can no longer be compromised.
In addressing more of the community’s concerns regarding future development, Cr Nicholls asked Mr Panagopoulos whether the existing system could cope with additional connections.
“A capacity review that was conducted approximately twelve months ago claimed that an additional 600 house lots could be accommodated by the existing system,” Mr Panagopoulos stated.
“However, I believe that the weather conditions over the past three years have probably shown us that we are, perhaps, at capacity now and so we should wait for more current information that will come with the results of the consultations in May.
“It would be a stab in the dark for me to determine the actual numbers now but there is certainly a bit of work to do yet.”
Some discussion ensued with Councillor’s Longley and Whitechurch and General Manager Butler acknowledging the lack of foresight inherited from previous council’s along with funding restraints that are failing to be addressed at both state and federal levels with Cr Longley making the points that all three of the councils river towns are currently suffering a similar fate and that the lack of economic development was ultimately hurting them all, to which Cr Whitechurch responded that he agreed that council had a difficult time ahead with not only the current, but future councils likely needing to be some very hard yards for the next fifteen to twenty years.
“We can forget about new developments,” GM Butler said.
“We need to deal with the current issues first.”
The investigation by NSW EPA concluded that approximately 22.5 megalitres of treated effluent that would normally be used for onsite irrigation was discharged from the plant into a stormwater drain that runs into the Murray River.
Whilst the discharge should not have occurred, water quality testing both up and downstream of the discharge site suggested that the impact on the surrounding environment was negligible with the total estimated discharge equating to 0.2 percent of the river’s daily flow rate.
“Council are responsible for ensuring appropriate controls and monitoring are in place to protect the environment, even in extreme weather events,” EPA Executive Director Jason Gordon said.
“Council and industry licensees need to operate with environmental responsibility within our communities and where that doesn’t happen the EPA will take action.”
EPA issued Federation Council with two official cautions, which will be considered in the event of future compliance breaches, in determining any future regulatory action.
The two cautions consisted of one for alleged breaches of the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 for pollute waters and one for failure to comply with licence conditions.
“We were not aware at the time that the discharge was occurring,” Mr Butler said in response to the cautions.
“We did report the discharge once we were made aware of it, however, this report did not occur within the required timeframe under our licence.”
Though disappointed that the discharge occurred, council accepted responsibility for the event and acknowledged the work that must be done to ensure that the existing sewage treatment facility was managing waste appropriately.
“We also conducted an internal investigation into how this happened and had already made significant amendments to the management of the treated water before the EPA report was finalised,” Mr Butler concluded.
“We know we need a new system and we are looking forward to being able to review the new design in May.”