Gold Coast City CEO Tim Baker and Logan Mayor Jon Raven at war over sewer leak scandal

“He has dropped the ball.” The Gold Coast City CEO and Logan Mayor are at war over the gigantic sewer leak into the Albert River. FULL STORY

The Logan Mayor is accusing Gold Coast City CEO Tim Baker of “dropping the ball” over the Albert River sewer leak shocker - and Mr Baker is flinging some muck right back.

Mr Baker is questioning why Logan Mayor Jon Raven has “politicised it”, saying the Gold Coast was transparent with findings, had employed a reputable independent consultant and begun infrastructure reform recommendations.

Mayor Raven claimed: “When it happened, their response was good. But the CEO of Gold Coast City Council should never have let this happen in the first place. Because he had the data. He had exactly what he needed to know this leak was happening.

“He has dropped the ball,” Mr Raven claimed.

Mr Baker responded: “A good Mayor would not seek to politicise this by drawing into question the independence of one of Australia’s most highly regarded environmental consultancies. This is unfortunate and unnecessary.”

Gold Coast City has admitted independent consultants found the three-month sewer leak was caused by pipe corrosion, lack of specialised wrapping and detection systems failure.

The pipe had failed several times including nine days before January’s leak - and Gold Coast City reduced funding for upgrades including better monitoring of sewer flows of the surrounding network.

Gold Coast City Council CEO Tim Baker hits back at Logan’s Mayor: “A good Mayor would not seek to politicise this.” Picture: Glenn Hampson

A Gold Coast council statement on Thursday has incensed Logan because it included a consultant finding no advice was received from its neighbour - Logan - about reduced sewer inflows. The major pipe which failed takes sewerage from fast-growing northern suburbs on the Gold Coast side north across the river to Logan’s Beenleigh treatment plant. The Gold Coast pays Logan City for that whilst the Coast prepares to upgrade its northern wastewater systems.

Logan City sources said the Coast was now playing “pin the tail on Logan”.

Logan had an advanced “situation room” for its water network including live monitoring providing data to Logan and Gold Coast City in “real time”.

“If it had happened in our city, there are alarms that go off and we’d have addressed it straight away. We assume when somebody else is monitoring their water network under their legal obligations they know what they are doing and know how to read the data we are giving them,” the source said. “If they want to pay us to run their network for them, we can charge them more to do it because we have the capacity to do it. Ours is automatic, it’s no skin off our nose. If they want to renegotiate that agreement and give us more money and save Gold Coast from themselves next time.

“Our system is state of the art, monitors the network live and has alarms. We provide that exact data in real time to the Gold Coast so they can do the same.”

Logan Mayor Jon Raven: “You don’t need a system to know that’s happening. You need to someone to drive past and say that’s a lot of sewerage.”

Mayor Raven made it clear his criticisms were not directed at Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate.

“You don’t need a system to know that’s happening. You need to someone to drive past and say that’s a lot of sewerage.”

Mr Raven said from the start his council co-operated with the Department of Environment.

Mr Raven said the main report his council was waiting on was the DESI investigation.

He suggested Mr Baker “put his hand up” and say “we’ve made a mistake and we should have done better”.

“It’s unfortunate he’s leaving his mayor (Tom Tate) to take the hit,” he said.

He said a CEO had a critical role being responsible for important infrastructure that protects the environment and people’s health. Mr Baker said Gold Coast had engaged an external consultant for an independent investigation, with findings on council’s website.

The Albert River sewer leak - this is the Gold Coast City Council pipe leak.

“I encourage the Mayor of Logan to read the report in full,” Mr Baker said.

The Bulletin understands City of Gold Coast is now aware there had been significant drop in inflows from the pipe to Logan City Council’s Beenleigh sewage treatment plant. But this amount is estimated at five megalitres daily - a third of the normal inflow over a three-month period - and had not been communicated to the City of Gold Coast.

AECOM consultants to Gold Coast city in their report wrote: “Logan City did not communicate low flows to CoGC.” The Beenleigh plant had daily throughput of 12.5 megalitres in dry weather and “this break meant five megalitres a day was missing”.

Mr Baker maintains he has taken ownership of the spill. The lead-up with the pipe’s history occurred before he started: “On behalf of the City, I’ve taken full responsibility and not sought to blame Logan City Council. We will implement the recommendation to revise our arrangement with Logan City Council.”

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