Christies sewage outfall progress

[tonyb 1,017]

This is not strictly anything to do with fishing tho' one or two Christies Beach/ Sullys beach casters may have an interest.Hope I'm not out of order, but here goes any way.The new sewage outfall pipe trench which has been getting dredged over the last months is now complete and works commence on sunday 15/11/09 on a 24/7 around the clock roster, to drag the new pipe line out it's 700 metre length and into its trench!Once this is succesfully completed, then the temporary jetty and sheet pilings will be removed!The beach itself is planned to be opened to the public again by mid january 2010.Cheers, Tony.

[catchno 0]

Good info there Tonyb. Curious, do you know when the new outfall pipe will be in operation? Will it be straight away or is there more work to be done with the sewage plant itself? :unsure:Ps: (off topic slightly, but technically related to subject ) Deep gutters have formed either side of the temp jetty, which could produce some nice fish.Cheers Robbie.

[tonyb 1,017]

Yes Robbie, the pipe is not replacing the existing one, it is actually there to provide an extra outlet to cope with the upgrading of the plant at the Waste water management facility More pipe to cope with more poo!!!All in the name of progress and burgeoning southern populations!The combination of the outfall and the De-salination plant should just about kill off any chances of our kids enjoying a healthy fishery down south :S :dry: S A Water has thoughtfully provided a long sieve type delivery pipe at the out fall end which is designed to spread the poo a bit better across the north/south running tide Wonder what happens when a "dodge" tide occurs???Gotta wonder at the effect on the newly declared/existing marine parks too???Cheers, Tony.

[catchno 0]

It will surely have an impact having waste from both the desal and upgrade of poo works within 1kilometre of each other. Everything we catch around this area will possibly from now on be coming out of the water already brined and marinated in you know what I have surfed at neighbouring Christies beach for a few years now and there is already a certain odour in the water at the outgoing tide. It (the water) has an odour that I can not really describe, not of feaces but like a load of washing left in the machine for half a day or longer :X What will the impact be like on local reefs like the horseshoe (christies beach), Port Noarlunga reef, seaford reef and maybe The Onkaparinga river...?? lets leave that for our kids and their kids to fix... :dry: My first official strikehook rant finished

[Kingsley 19]

What I don't get about the whole desal plant & poo farm thing is this, why don't they just pipe the already 'clean' water from the poo farm to the desal plant? solves both problems of putting fresh water into the sea, and the putting back of ultra briny water from the desal plant.its stupid, hey lets pump fresh water into the sea, then 500m up the beach suck in salt water and take the salt out so we can drink it... ?!?!? this is one big waste of energy and money.and did you know that the amount of waste water pumped out to sea every year in adelaide is approximately equivalent to how much we suck out of the Murray? clean it up, reuse it, and stop our reliance on the Murray.. seems so easy.the only reason i can see that they dont do this is the 'Yuk' factor. But if they are pumping waste water out to sea right where they are sucking it in to the desal plant, you know that a percentage of the water is going to be from the waste plant :)the water that the poo farm pumps out to sea is actually highly treated and already a great deal of it is pumped to aldinga/mclaren vale to water vineyards. I bet when people are enjoying a nice wine from the region they dont think twice about what water went on the vines.oh and i only refer to the wastewater treatment plant as the 'poo farm' because I have a friend that works there and that is what we refer to it as

[tonyb 1,017]

Really good feed back gentlemen, I luv a controversial topic, it certainly gets the old "grey matter" into thinking mode. Pity a few more of our highly paid consultants and pollies don't apply some simple logic before they splurge our dollars out on these multi million dollar projects ($40 million per year in electricity costs alone just to RUN the de-salination plant!)The effluent is not clean enough for drinking, far from it, it is what they call "grey water"! This is what is being piped down to Aldinga and fed into underground aquifers then re-used for irrigation, mostly for the wine growing industry, which as all of us know is in a very dramatic decline with bankruptcys inevitable and then no further use for the re-cyled water :silly:Mr Rann really has to put on his thinking cap about the levels of induced "grey water" which Adelaideans will be drinking well in to the future, more especially as harvested stormwater would be a much more economically sensible and a sight more palatable than our own poo :S Cheers, Tony

[Kingsley 19]

Never meant it was clean enough to drink, just that it is water and not poo sludge as some people would think.If this water went through the desal plant, it would come out the other end the same as the sea water would, clean enough to drink. No briny water pumped back out to sea (because you are using freshwater), no salt clogging up and damaging the osmosis membranes (Expensive!)just for you tony its a good read although 10years oldhttp://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=440

However, whilst we are using about 1,400 gigalitres each year, a recent audit of our water resources shows that we have a further 1,300 gigalitres available for use on a sustainable basis.

[tonyb 1,017]

Wow Kingsley, you sure have done your homework mate and it goes to prove the old axiom that you can prove/disprove any known theory with figures, some of those quoted being quite minds boggling To fill you in a little more on this fascinating topic, the Sludge Lagoons at River road which have always recieved the wet poo sludge to dry out, are to be closed very soon and a railway line built over it, waste soil from the Christies plant will be dumped on the site and when the railway is completed, bridge and all, the whole site will be re habilitated by S A Water and turned into a Bird Sanctuary.Now, you are saying, what an excellent result I guess?The problem now turns on itself as the by product sludge from the new centrifugal sludge drying plant to be built at Christies at a cost of many millions has now to be carted to various sources while the GREY water goes out to sea or to underground aquifers at Aldinga for re use in irrigation and limited new housing (metred,) grey water use.ie gardens, toilet flushes etc. The tangled webs we weave!!!Cheers, Tony.