Page 2603 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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Lower Molonglo Water Treatment Works
MR DUBY: My question is also directed to Mr Wood in his capacity of Minister responsible for environmental matters in the ACT. I refer him to recent public statements by a local New South Wales Parliament member, Mr Alby Schultz, about the quality of discharge from the Lower Molonglo water treatment works into the Molonglo and hence into the Murrumbidgee. Does Mr Wood also have concerns about the quality of the discharge from those works into the Murrumbidgee system and, if so, what action does he propose to take?
MR WOOD: We do have a concern, and I share Mr Schultz's concern, which I wish was rather wider. I wish that he was concerned about the water not only as it leaves the ACT but also as it the enters the ACT. I think he should take note of that, and so should the New South Wales environment Minister. Not only should they care for that, but they should also note what happens to the water at all the townships down the Murrumbidgee and Murray rivers. The treatment works we have here, on all the information I have, is superior to the works that treat sewage in New South Wales.
We have an excellent sewage treatment works. It was very expensive to set up, and it operates well. I make a qualification to that: It operates very well in dry weather. Like treatment works elsewhere, it does not operate as well in wet weather. There are a number of reasons for that, one of which is water seepage into the sewage mains. It is thought also that there are a number of illegal connections into the system. The ability of the treatment works to process a heavy flow is also a factor.
There are three stages of treatment, and there have been occasions when the tertiary stage, the third stage, has been bypassed, and even occasions when the secondary stage has been bypassed, though not very frequently. I believe that it is proper for the pollution control authority to monitor the outflow, as they do; but they are also under my instructions to carry out an audit, an examination of the efficiency of the system, to assure us, and maybe people in New South Wales, that the system is working as well as it possibly can, not just in dry weather but also in wet weather. I will report back to the Assembly later on about that audit.
Gungahlin Homesteads
MR STEFANIAK: My question - I am sorry, Mr Wood - is to the Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning.
Mr Berry: Why are you apologising?
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