By Jess Baker
A billabong at the end of Warwick’s Canning Street has been unofficially renamed ‘Pongbong’ by local residents, following weeks of an “overwhelming stench” at the site.
Canning Street resident Gavin Leslie said the foul-smelling odour is so strong it has prevented him from leaving the house.
“We’re living right next to it,” he said.
“We can’t go outside because it smells so bad … it gives you headaches.”
On the evening of Thursday 22 April, Gavin said he believes he saw a Southern Downs Regional Council truck parked at the site, and a worker tending to a hole in a sewer pipe that was “the size of a dinner plate”.
The next day, on Friday 23 April, SDRC released a statement advising the community of a sewage overflow into Bracker Creek that resulted from a break in the sewer rising main from the McEvoy Street pump station.
A SDRC spokesperson said the council had received three enquiries from local residents regarding an odour in the “Canning and Lyon Streets area” near the Warwick Showgrounds, over the span of a week.
“Council’s environmental health officers immediately investigated the site on 22 April and found the main break around 4.00pm,” said the spokesperson.
“Officers undertook remediation actions once the overflow was discovered to quickly minimise the impact of the overflow and the break was repaired by 7.15pm.
“Rehabilitation work is ongoing to sanitise the area and to pump out contaminated overflow to Council’s sewer system.”
The spokesperson said it is difficult to identify exactly when the break first occurred, but SDRC immediately investigated the incident following local residents’ enquiries.
Gavin said effluent 30 centimetres high remains at the end of Canning Street, along with an “appalling” smell.
“We have a pond that’s now contaminated,” he said.
“Our neighbours over the other side of Canning Street have two lagoons … they’re pumping out those lagoons now because they’re contaminated.”
A SDRC spokesperson said water samples from Bracker and Rosenthal Creeks have been tested and show high levels of E. coli in the water within close vicinity of the break.
“Water quality results show the break water was contained within Bracker Creek, with results of downstream samples from the Rosenthal Creek and Condamine River showing no signs of contamination,” said the spokesperson.
“Local residents have also been cautioned not to use the water from the affected area until further advice from the Council.”
The SDRC spokesperson said the break detected at the end of Canning Street was the same break referred to in SDRC’s Friday 23 April community notice.
Jennifer Greene-Galloway, also a Canning Street resident, said sewage odour issues have long been occurring – and long been overlooked – at the site.
“There’s been sewage odour issues at our rental property on Canning Street for years, at times fearing were a match lit the whole place would blow and we aren’t the only area impacted,” she said.
“The bottom line is the community and environment can’t continue being collateral damage to the ongoing failing sewerage system.
“The sewerage infrastructure has been ignored to the nth degree, it’s time it was addressed.”
Jennifer said she believes the problem has been known by consecutive councils but, due to significant expense, it’s been dumped in the ‘too hard’ basket.
“I’m fully aware the residential sewerage charge wouldn’t cover such a huge undertaking, it’s time to rally the state for grants and funding to help get this project off the ground,” she said.
A SDRC spokesperson said that while the council recently funded a $260,000 upgrade of the McEvoy Street pump station, the work involved pump and valve replacements, not the sewer rising main of the pump station.
“It is important to note that the overflow was the result of a failure of the rising (pressure) main which carries wastewater from the pump station to the discharge location and was not associated with the pump station itself,” said the spokesperson.
“The existing rising main was installed in 1971.”
SDRC encourages anyone with concerns from the recent overflow to contact its Customer Service Centre on 1300 697 372.
