A giant fatberg, potentially the size of four Sydney buses, within Sydney Water’s Malabar deepwater ocean sewer has been identified as the likely source of the debris balls that washed up on Sydney beaches a year ago.
Sydney Water isn’t sure exactly how big the fatberg is because it can’t easily access where it has accumulated.
Fixing the problem would require shutting down the outfall – which reaches 2.3km offshore – for maintenance and diverting sewage to “cliff face discharge”, which would close Sydney’s beaches “for months”, a secret report obtained by Guardian Australia states.
“The working hypothesis is FOG [fats, oils and grease] accumulation in an inaccessible dead zone between the Malabar bulkhead door and the decline tunnel has potentially led to sloughing events, releasing debris balls,” the report concludes.
“This chamber was not designed for routine maintenance and can only be accessed by taking the DOOF offline and diverting effluent to the cliff face for an extended period (months), which would close Sydney beaches.”
You really should not.
Waste water treatment, in order to reach human consumption grade, undergoes several stages of treatment.
Removes solids, largely unsoluble, be it organic or inorganic
Forced oxygenization, to activate micro organism capable of digesting the organic matter present. This stage is the most crucial for the entire process.
Waters are allowed to settle, in order to separate solids, now highly rich organic mud, from the water, in large pools or tanks, that are continually fed. Entering water displaces already clarified and mostly depleted of oxygen water, which can safely be returned to nature.
Previously clarified water undergoes UV treatment and/or has added minute quantities of sodium hypochlorite, for disinfection purposes. Microfiltering can be added subsequently.
This water is safe for use in street cleaning, irrigation, industrial uses, fire fighting, etc.
Obligatory microfiltering, followed by reverse osmosis process, to remove heavy metals and trace chemicals, followed by filtering through activated charcoal filters. Mineral (sand and rock) filters are then used to give back minerals to the water, to give it an organoleptic profile.
Stabilization of pH and final clarification can be done, before being reintroduced to the supply network.
The whole world should be doing it this way simply because if fresh water sources are being used for potable water, it’s likely that same source is being used to to discard the so-called treated sewage water … which is then taken up and distributed as potable water (with disenfectants added).
Thing is if you don’t use the reverse osmosis stage your community is drinking water that is contaminated with every drug (legal and illegal) that people have peed out.
Studies have shown fish in the Great Lakes - which are used both for returned treated sewage and drinking water - are being affected by some of those drugs (especially the ones that affect hormones).
Hells Bells, I knew. Hells Belle… Glad to meet you.
The issue with sanitation is that it consumes resources, and a good amount of if, in a very short time. And planning and putting it down requires specialized, skilled, work, which costs a lot of money. And maintain and operate it returns a permanent cost.
Politians are not willing to do this and are mostly uncapable of explaining why this should be done. It also does not help most people being completely ignorant or uncaring for ecological impact, unless it comes back to bite their behind.
Waste water management is crucial and it is a source of resources, water only being the first.
Muds can be harvested for digestion, in order to produce methane for generating electricity. Depending on the scale, it can be used to power the plant alone or to inject into the wide power grid.
Digested muds can be further processed by composting and then be funneled towards agriculture and forestry.
Fats can be harvested, purified and transformed into soaps, creams and industrial lubricants. Extremely well purified fats can even be converted to fuel or even added to feeds.
Going green is necessary and extremely profitable.
If enough ambition is put in place, fully organic treatments can be put in place and wild life can be made part, by default, of treating waste waters and fish, water fowls and even plants with secondary uses can be introduced to create another value chain.
However, to kickstart all of this, it is necessary to make people aware that water, regardless carrying waste, is still water and, as such, is precious.