St Kilda Beach Closed

Grant · #1 04-May-2007, 23:35

Increased bacteria levels have forced the closure of St Kilda Beach in Dunedin.

Dunedin City Council said water tests today showed high levels of harmful bacteria and recommended against swimming, surfing of paddling at the beach until further notice. Strong winds and sea currents are regularly blamed for sweeping a sewage plume towards shore from an outfall at Lawyer's Head on the south coast of the Otago Peninsula at the eastern end of St Kilda Beach.

Bacteria levels prompt beach warning - 04 May 2007 - NZ Herald: New Zealand and International Environment News

rainfan · #2 16-May-2008, 22:59

And here I was thinking upon reading the heading of Melbourne

.

St Kilda Beach in Melbourne used to be quite dirty. Can remember seeing all kinds of rubbish being washed up onto bay beaches including rubbers and faeces which certainly didn't make for pretty viewing. It's more cleaner today thanks to more stringent "Keep The Enviroment Clean" laws but still a long way to go before its 100% clean.

Grant · #3 17-May-2008, 00:59

Well its a year on now since that article, anyone know if there have been any improvements?

ATO2 · #4 17-May-2008, 08:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grant

Well its a year on now since that article, anyone know if there have been any improvements?

I had no idea that sewerage was still spewing into the sea in this country. I know a bit more now- I recall it not being too good in New Plymouth 40 years ago but we upgraded years ago and have very modern facilities- I had assumed all cities had done that. Haven't some North Shore beaches in Auckland been closed within recent years for because of high bacteria counts?

ATO2 · #5 18-May-2008, 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grant

Well its a year on now since that article, anyone know if there have been any improvements?

I went to the Ministry for the Environment website and at first look it is not very informative...talks about known waste water systems and there are about 269 or 125 or whatever.
I can download lots of reports though, none of which seems to tell me the answers I want: does City X discharge wastewater to the sea? How is it treated?
I gain the impression that a fair percentage of discharges are secondary treated and some are tertiary treated.
Funny thing is, I can find out about overseas regions so much more quickly!
Such info should be so easy to get.

fragment · #6 03-Jun-2008, 22:25

They're building a longer pipe so the yucky stuff is further away from the beach.

IIRC it's not raw sewage, but it's not as treated as it could be either. There's a plan to upgrade the treatment plant in the works. I reckon they should bring that forward by prioritising it over the new stadium they want to throw up and the waterfront redevelopment proposal and the Town Hall extension... but I guess wastewater treatment isn't a very glamorous project for city councillors to have on their resumes...

Slightly less cynical info here.

ATO2 · #7 04-Jun-2008, 09:07

So that's what they are doing. I guess it makes sense to have a longer pipe if one is redeveloping the waterfront! uugh!

fragment · #8 04-Jun-2008, 12:57

Fortunately they're different waterfronts. St Kilda is a beach on the south coast, they're talking about redevoloping the inner harbour waterfront. Not a bad idea, although I'm not sure Dunedin's quite the place for balmy evening strolls and open air bars and cafes for much of the year. I think core infrastructure should come first, though.

ATO2 · #9 04-Jun-2008, 13:18

Core infrastructure is uttterly vital. Thank goodness, we in New Plymouth went the whole hog some years ago with waste water and water sourcing. Some were against the cost at the time but now it appears cheap- the system was designed to allow for future growth and this has been very useful. Oakura- an up market beach community- is currently being added to the scheme and the cost of that is around $24 million alone. God knows what an entire city system would cost now!
A little forethought helps, as sometimes it may be only a little dearer to put in pipes, lines, or whatever etc for a potentially larger population base. An engineer or planner with a bit of nouse is worth gold.
Back in the late 1920's storm water development for New Plymouth was done for a population of 60,000, at a time when there were under 20,000 people.
This served us well until relatively recently.