Nine beaches in Northern Sydney have been closed due to more material washing up that are similar to the human waste found on beaches in the Eastern Suburbs last year. Repeated occasions where wastewater is causing pollution and with no clear source must be addressed by the Environment Protection Authority and Sydney Water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greens MP and spokesperson for the environment Sue Higginson<\/strong> said \u201cThe repeated discharge of sewage material onto Sydney Beaches in recent months is a deep sign that there is a systemic failure in Sydney\u2019s waste water management. We know that Sydney loses significant amounts of water<\/u><\/a> through cracked and damaged pipes, it\u2019s time for Sydney Water to tell the public how much sewage is leaking into our environment. If they don\u2019t know, why don\u2019t they don\u2019t know, because they should know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSydney Water has admitted that the human waste on beaches in Sydney\u2019s east last year may have absorbed wastewater discharges indicating that our current treatment systems are not fit for purpose and the question remains, how much waste products are discharged by Sydney Water as part of their \u2018normal operations\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe need to have a serious conversation about the accountability of utilities like Sydney Water, and we must do better when it comes to taking responsibility for subjects like where our crap goes. The environment cannot afford for us to just shrug and accept human waste turning up on beaches that are in regular use,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) needs to consider what tools they will use to prevent Sydney Water from releasing waste products as part of their normal operations. If that means that Sydney Water\u2019s licence must be varied, or be put on a pollution reduction program – then that\u2019s what needs to happen,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn times of drought, we are rightly worried that clean water is leaking into the ground. We need to be just as concerned about the discharges of human waste and toxic chemicals due to inadequate systems and infrastructure. If Sydney Water needs more resources and better tools to get the job done then the Government must stump up,\u201d Ms Higginson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nine beaches in Northern Sydney have been closed due to more material washing up that are similar to the human waste found on beaches in the Eastern Suburbs last year. Repeated occasions where wastewater is causing pollution and with no clear source must be addressed by the Environment Protection Authority and Sydney Water. Greens MP … Continue reading “Sydney Water must account for sewerage waste on beaches”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30909"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30910,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30909\/revisions\/30910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}