By Gabriella Payne
A sudden bout of heavy rainfall on Monday 23 November has caused a sewer to overflow in Noble Park, leaving South East Water teams to clean up the mess.
According to South East Water spokesman Charlie Littlefair, “small amounts of wastewater” overflowed and entered the stormwater system and subsequently, found their way into the nearby stormwater outlet at Mile Creek.
Mr Littlefair said South East Water was “very sorry this happened” and were working with the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) to “clean up the spill and minimise the environmental impact”.
Although South East Water’s sewer system is designed to accommodate rain, torrential downpours such as the one seen on Monday can result in large amounts of stormwater entering the sewer system at a time, inundating the network of pipes and causing overflows.
Once an overflow occurs, wastewater can enter the stormwater system, making its way into creeks, rivers and eventually bays.
With the SES reporting that 61 millilitres of rain fell within a four hour window on Monday and locals calling for help due to flooding, there’s no doubt that this wet weather event wreaked havoc across the Greater Dandenong region.
Mr Littlefair said South East Water had their customers’ best interests in mind.
“We design our sewer system to protect our customers by enabling the excess stormwater that enters the sewer system to discharge to nearby waterways, instead of into our customers’ homes,” he said.
He added that the risk associated with a sewer overflow was “relatively low”, as contaminants from the sewer are heavily diluted.
John Lees, spokesperson for the EPA Southern Metro said that South East Water had “done the right thing” by reporting the incident and beginning the clean up immediately.
“There was a lot of water going through on Monday,” Mr Lees said.
“By the time we got on site, they were already cleaning up and there was no odour detected.”
Mr Lees added that the EPA were continuing to work with South East Water to monitor the situation and ensure the spill was completely cleaned up.
After heavy rain events, both South East Water and the EPA warned residents that stormwater may also contain contaminants, such as animal droppings, oil from the road and commonly used garden chemicals and to steer clear of swimming near any stormwater outlets for at least
24 – 48 hours after a downpour.
Mr Littlefair also encouraged any customers who noticed a sewer flow or anything “out of the ordinary” to contact South East Water’s 24 hour faults and emergencies team on 13 28 12.
