Castle Hill: Raw sewage flowing into backyards and pools
Residents in north west Sydney have been made to clean up raw sewage from their backyards after the Sydney storms, raising concerns about whether the local sewage system can cope with massive multistorey developments.
Hills Shire
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The weekend floods have left one Castle Hill family with a swimming pool full of poo and, residents claim, nobody is offering to help clean it up.
Steve Fender’s backyard at Kathleen Ave was inundated with the sewage on Saturday caused by a blockage in the underground pipes, filling up his pool.
It also ran into a number of other properties nearby.
“I’ve got to do it [clean it up] myself now,” Mr Fender said of emptying and disinfecting his pool.
“It’s potentially a serious health hazard.”
Mr Fender said the outpouring of raw sewage lasted about eight hours during the massive Sydney storms.
Sydney Water visited three days later on Monday to dislodge the baby wipes and overgrown tree roots from the pipes, according to a number of residents in the area.
“It came out of the man hole and all of the other outlets on the street and created a mini sewer tsunami, which filled our entire pool and what’s down under our house, our storage area and garage,” Mr Fender said.
“It stinks like faeces and urine, and we can’t get our dogs out the back.”
On Belvedere Ave, sewage poured into Charles Avery’s garden shed and overflowed from the stormwater drain outside his house.
“There are about 100 blowflies around the shed and it stinks,” Mr Avery said.
A spokesperson for Sydney Water said they received about 5500 requests for assistance over the weekend and were working “as quickly as possible to respond to these requests”.
“Sydney Water has communicated with the customer at Kathleen Ave, Castle Hill to reassure them that we will assist with costs associated with uninsured loss, including pool and garden clean-up,” the spokesperson said.
But the whole sewage debacle has residents questioning whether the local sewage system can handle the mass development that is about to take place in the region.
“A lot of infrastructure is happening at Castle Hill. Just across the road they are going to build nine, 20-storey buildings,” Mr Fender said.
Neighbour Mr Avery said: “There’s (also) the Carrington Rd Showground development. We only have a little sewerage system.”
At Showground and Carrington Rds in Castle Hill, a 13-storey residential tower is proposed a few hundred metres from the new metro station, including 296 apartments.
A spokesperson for Sydney Water said that new infrastructure and upgrades will be rolled-out to meet the growth demands of the area.
“Sydney Water plans for the rollout of water and wastewater services to keep pace with rezoning of land for new housing,” he said.
“They also reflect the sequence of land release by the government.”
“Sydney Water also has an extensive asset maintenance program to ensure the infrastructure we have can continue to meet the requirements of demands and various standards.”