Residents in Sydney’s eastern suburbs are kicking up a stink over a plan to stop dumping their raw sewage into the ocean, which they say will ruin a clifftop park and potentially cause bad odours.
Sydney Water wants to build a pumping station at Eastern Reserve in Dover Heights to ensure sewage is treated at the Bondi wastewater treatment plant rather than dumped into the ocean.
Sydney Water wants to build a pumping station at Eastern Reserve in Dover Heights as part of a plan to stop raw sewage being dumped into the ocean.Credit: Janie Barrett
Three deep ocean outfalls – at North Head, Malabar and Bondi – were constructed 30 years ago to process sewage before it is pumped three kilometres out to sea.
But raw sewage from some of Sydney’s wealthiest suburbs – Watsons Bay, Vaucluse, Rose Bay and Dover Heights – still flows directly into the ocean at the bottom of cliffs.
The Refresh Vaucluse and Diamond Bay project will instead connect these suburbs to the Bondi deep ocean outfall, and will include two new pumping stations at Parsley Bay on Sydney Harbour and Eastern Reserve, three kilometres of new wastewater pipelines and upgrades to infrastructure such as vent shafts and manholes.
However, Waverley Council and some residents are unhappy about the impact of the pumping station on the Eastern Reserve clifftop park.
An artist’s impression of the proposed pumping station at Eastern Reserve in Dover Heights.Credit: Sydney Water
A council spokeswoman said there was consistent pollution near the three outfalls in Vaucluse, Diamond Bay and Dover Heights, which had a “minor impact” on the water quality of Bondi, Tamarama and Bronte Beaches.
She said the council supported the proposed location of the pump station at Eastern Reserve, but would work with Sydney Water to mitigate its impact.
“We share residents’ concerns about the potential visual and landscape character impacts to the reserve as well as impacts to park users,” she said.
A Sydney Water spokeswoman said in a statement the pumping station would better protect beaches, reduce pollution and improve water quality. An update on the project is scheduled for September.
Waverley Council and some eastern suburbs residents are unhappy about the impact of a pumping station – designed to stop raw sewage being pumped into the ocean – on a clifftop park in Dover Heights.Credit: Janie Barrett
“Based on the feedback received from the local community and stakeholders, Sydney Water is undertaking further assessments of the design and location of above-ground structures to reduce potential odour and improve visual amenity,” she said.
Dover Heights resident Marcus Phillips said the proposed pumping station resembled “a nuclear missile silo” and would reduce the amount of recreational space at the park.
Residents were also worried their homes could be jeopardised by vibrations during construction and would have to deal with noise from when the pumping station was operating, Phillips said.
“This project appears to have arisen from the best of intentions, but now promises to become its own environmental disaster,” he said.
Phillips said, in a letter to Vaucluse Liberal MP Gabrielle Upton, that the impact of the pumping station had to be weighed against the “proposed benefits of protecting the ocean from an insignificant amount of natural waste”.
Upton said the closure of the ocean outfalls was a “once-in-a-lifetime project with overwhelmingly positive benefits”, but she expected Sydney Water would address residents’ concerns.
Another nearby resident Elysia Thornton-Benko said she supported an end to dumping raw sewage into the ocean, but questioned the wisdom of constructing the facility on a precarious cliff top subject to coastal erosion and rock falls.
Dover Heights Precinct convenor Dov Frazer said the current design of the pumping station unnecessarily encroached upon public space.
Frazer said Sydney Water should stick to their original promises and construct a pumping station that allows park users to “continue to enjoy this beautiful cliffside reserve as closely as possible to the way it is now”.
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