Sewage spill risk threat to Hobart’s $50m cable car project

Hobart’s $50m cable car project faces a potential new hurdle, after a report found a ‘medium risk’ from sewage spillage impacting habitable areas.

Hobart’s $50m cable car project faces a potential new hurdle.

Hobart’s $50m cable car project faces a potential new hurdle, with an engineering report identifying a “medium risk” from sewage spillage impacting habitable areas and neighbouring Cascade Brewery not ruling out intervention.

A site servicing report for the cableway, proposed for kunanyi/Mt Wellington, finds an overall “medium” risk of sewage from new visitor facilities spilling and impacting “habitable area”.

Residents Opposed to the Cable Car expressed “alarm” at the finding, in a report by Gandy and Roberts Consulting Engineers submitted as part of the project’s development application.

The Cascade Brewery, located near the proposed new sewerage infrastructure, declined to say whether it would lodge an objection with the Hobart City Council or seek to invoke a covenant it placed on the land in question.

Gandy and Roberts’s report reveals up to 100,000 litres of sewage a day might be generated at the development’s visitor Pinnacle Centre, featuring bar, cafe and restaurant on top of the mountain.

The Mt Wellington Cableway Company proposes transporting the waste down the mountain in “transport tanks” via the 2.6km cableway to a base terminal, where it would be added to that building’s sewage.

From there, the total sewage load would be pumped via pipe along the length of a new access road to a discharge point at McRobies Road, South Hobart.

ROCC said the land in question was gifted to the city by Cascade in 1975, with a covenant preventing its use for any purpose that might compete with or be detrimental to the brewery business.

The Gandy and Roberts risk assessment concludes: “Due to the locality of the development, above existing residential and commercial land, there is a risk that overflows could reach habitable area.”

The chances of this occurring were low “based on management systems employed through the design”, but “overall” the risk rating was “medium”.

There was “medium” risk of overflow reaching waterways used for aquaculture and a “high” risk relating to ecosystems in nearby waterways and parks and recreational areas downstream.

“We are alarmed at the acknowledged risk a cable car sewage spill poses to residents and water quality,” ROCC spokesman Vica Bayley said. “We question this company’s capacity to safely operate a cable car carrying thousands of litres of sewage every day (which) needs manual handling numerous times before it enters a reticulated sewerage system.

“The DA acknowledges the risk as medium ... Like many things in the DA, that’s likely an underestimate but, irrespective, it is unacceptable.”

MWCC chairman Chris Oldfield said the company did “not provide a commentary to issues that will be lodged to council as part of the DA process”.

“In relation to sewage, we are providing a solution to the appalling situation that exits where toilets on the pinnacle can overflow,” he said. “Our solution has to be preferable to sewage trucks servicing the pinnacle.”

Asahi, owners of Cascade Brewery, would not say what action, if any, it would take in relation to the DA or the covenant