25 signatures reached
To: Bega Valley Shire Council
No Poo in the Bay
Waste water should not be discharged in to the ocean by building a 2-3 km long discharge pipe . It is a pollutant and dilution is not a treatment. Out of sight out of mind is not active engagement with the problem. On land use should be expanded and the waste water treated to a higher standard. The benefit of this approach is that it
1. Uses the water rather than dumping it
2. Allows monitoring the consequences of the practice
3. Is a cyclical practice making us responsible for the act and value add to the land
4. Future-proofs by preserving water in the context of rising temperatures climate change and fire control
Why is this important?
This campaign highlights the continuing and short sighted practice by councils and government of discharging waste water into the ocean. This practice of further polluting our oceans, rather than utilizing on land solutions including plant upgrade, is not sustainable with our current understanding of the environment and climate change. In particular the councils and government seem to make no effort to address the individual issues that collectively create the problem they are addressing.
For example, one reason the council argues for an ocean discharge pipe is high flows into the sewer system during storm events. Rather than address the issue of how storm water enters the sewer system, through historical or illegal connection, they simply address the symptom ( the sporadic high flows) rather than the root cause ( illegal and or historical connection issues).
Secondly, by dumping sewer water in the ocean dilution would make short term impacts difficult to detect however agricultural land use is more amenable to monitoring and proactive intervention through crop, pasture and waterways monitoring.