SORRENTO, Victoria — Hundreds of angry Mornington Peninsula residents brought their concerns to the city on November 1, holding a rally at the steps of the State Library to protest at the state government's and Melbourne Water’s policy, or lack of it, regarding the ocean outfall at Boags Rocks, Gunnamatta.

Another rally in October at Gunnamatta beach attracted thousands of protesters. The protest was brought to the city in order to highlight that 42% of Melbourne’s waste is being pumped, via a 57km pipeline, to Boags Rocks from the Eastern Treatment Plant at Carrum.

That’s 450 million litres of secondary-treated effluent being discharged into Bass Strait daily. This effluent is predominantly domestic waste, but it also contains around 15-20% industrial waste. So besides the usual high levels of pathogens and nutrients found in domestic waste, there is a substantial amount of heavy metals and toxins polluting the marine environment at Gunnamatta.

For years, a small number of local surfers were voicing concerns about ear and throat infections and gastrointestinal illnesses after surfing at Gunnamatta, but as the peninsula has rapidly developed so has the level of community opposition to the waste pumping.

The outfall not only poses health risks to humans, but has had a detrimental effect on the marine environment. A number of seaweed species have disappeared. It would be safe to say that seafood caught near the outfall isn’t in high demand to eat.

Local marine biologist and lecturer at the Rosebud TAFE, Professor Neil Hallam, who has done studies of the marine environment around the outfall, describes it as “a bit like a marine desert”. Local abalone diver and exporter Peter Johnstone argues that the impact on seaweeds and other marine life extends as far as Cape Schanck.

In the 25 years of the Carrum Plant’s operation, Melbourne Water has only managed to recycle 1% of the effluent. This prompted members of the Clean Ocean Foundation to present the inaugural “Water Wally” award to Melbourne Water on the morning of the city rally. The state government has just introduced water restrictions for the first time in almost 20 years. The effluent dumped at Gunnamatta, if treated properly, could be a valuable asset.

As Graham Quail, spokesman for the Clean Ocean Foundation, told protesters at the city rally, that “the only sustainable rivers that could be turned inland are ocean outfalls”.

The state government and Melbourne Water have announced that the Carrum Treatment Plant will be upgraded and that they will be aiming for a 20% recycling target by 2010, but the Clean Ocean Foundation and local residents are calling for drinkable treatment and 100% recycling of the effluent and the ultimate closure of the outfall by 2015.

Melbourne Water is also proposing to extend the outfall two kilometres out to sea, but opponents are calling this an “out of sight, out of mind” approach. They argue that the money would be better spent on better treatment technology and recycling infrastructure.

Local surfers also oppose an outfall extension because, even though it may make Gunnamatta a “safer” place to surf, they argue that the effluent will just wash in further down the coast and pollute that area, as has been evident by other outfall extensions such as Bondi in NSW.

Unions have got behind the Clean Ocean Campaign, rallying support among members and threatening a union ban on any works to build an ocean outfall extension at Boags Rocks. Martin Kingham, state secretary for the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, and Dean Mighell from the Electrical Trades Union both spoke at the city rally, calling on local residents to join them at the outfall site when the extension works begin. They also announced that during the three-week Christmas break, every crane on city works sites will be flying the Clean Ocean Foundation flag.

Protesters at the rally also unanimously endorsed a Clean Ocean Foundation initiative to refuse to pay Mornington Peninsula National Park entry fees this summer, as a protest to the continuing polluting of the ocean around Gunnamatta caused by this outfall.

We live in the driest continent in the world and are facing one of the worst droughts in living memory and yet there are 140 ocean outfalls currently operating around Australia discharging around three billion litres of effluent daily into our oceans, bays and rivers.It makes you question if Australia really deserves the title the “clever country”. So next time you press the button to flush just remember — “It’s Gunnamatta”!

From Green Left Weekly, December 4, 2002.
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