By JESSE GRAHAM
YARRA Valley Water has blamed a recent Healesville sewerage spill on a “fatberg” of wet wipes clogging the system, and has called on residents to be smarter when they flush.
In a release sent out on Tuesday 22 September, YV Water’s managing director Pat McCafferty said that a sewerage spill took place at the corner of Don Road and Mt Riddell Road in Healesville on Friday 18 September.
Mr McCafferty said a quick response from the organisation “narrowly” stopped spilling sewerage from reaching the Watts River.
“We responded quickly and started the clean up as soon as it was safe to do so, and we expect the water quality in the local wetlands to return to normal shortly,” he said.
He blamed the spill on wet wipes, fats and oils flushed or washed down sinks building up, forming a “fatberg” and getting caught on tree roots in the sewer, and said the objects “do not belong there”.
“We need the community to help stop this problem, as things such as wet wipes can cause blockages in our sewers,” Mr McCafferty said.
“As you can imagine, fats and oils also block the pipes and only add to the problem we are seeing with wet wipes by clumping them together, causing even more blockages.”
The Mail reported in March that Yarra Valley water had been dealing with the headache of so-called “flushable” wipes for years, with four tonnes of the wipes removed from the sewerage system every fortnight on average.
Though the wipes are marked as “flushable”, Mr McCafferty said they didn’t disintegrate like toilet paper, and could easily cause blockages and spills in the sewer network.
Cleaning those blockages up can cost up to $1000 each time, and the material can result in spills, such as the one that occurred in Healesville.
“Our sewers were not designed for wet wipes,” Mr McCafferty said.
“Just because something says it’s ‘flushable’ doesn’t mean it should be flushed.”
While Yarra Valley Water has installed machinery in treatment plants to deal with wet wipes, blockages often occur elsewhere in the process, and Mr McCafferty said not flushing the wrong things was the key.
“Rather than fix everything at the end of the system, it’d be better for a behavioural change – prevention is better than the cure,” he said.
“We can always throw a lot of money and technology at the problems at the end of the pipe, but that’s a cost to society.
“We can avoid that by being smarter and being informed – that’s a better result for everyone.”
When asked if Yarra Valley Water could update their infrastructure to include machinery in pipes to process wet wipes, Mr McCafferty said it was possible – but would have a “huge” cost and energy use, as well as widespread disruptions as every pipe was updated.
He said a working group had been established to work with wet wipes manufacturers to update the controversial “flushable” labels, but that change could be between two and three years away.
“The message we want to get to the community is don’t put anything down the loo that it’s not designed for,” Mr McCafferty said.
For more information about what should and should not go down the toilet and sink, visit www.yvw.com.au/nonumberthree.
