The Macleay River adjoining Stuarts Point caravan park

'Invaluable resource for caravanners'

Council fined $15,000 after caravan park sewage spills into river

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KEMPSEY Shire Council in NSW has been ordered to pay $15,000 after huge quantities of untreated sewage escaped into Macleay River from its Stuarts Point caravan park.

A power outage was blamed for the problem which resulted in an estimated 2000 litres of raw sewage flowing into the adjoining river.

The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) issued the penalty notice after carrying out an investigation into last October's incident.

As part of the probe, the EPA required the council to provide a report detailing information on the likely cause of the overflow and the actions taken by council staff to clean-up and minimise the impact of the effluent on the local environment and community.

The EPA’s manager for the North Coast Region, Brett Nudd, said it was evident from the incident report that while the council had installed a new sewage management system, there had clearly been inadequate training of council staff following the system's installation.

"Machinery breakdowns can't be helped but it was the lack of familiarity with how the system worked overall that seriously delayed council's response time and contributed to the effluent entering the river and polluting the water," Mr Nudd said.

"Council could have avoided this incident by carrying out regular training for staff and ensuring incident response procedures are reviewed and updated, especially when new equipment is installed."

It said all operators of sewage systems, including local councils, had a responsibility to ensure onsite management procedures were in place to prevent pollution incidents and ensure response times to incidents were quick so environmental impacts were minimised

The EPA took incidents of water pollution seriously and continued to monitor the activities of all councils on the North Coast, including Kempsey Shire, to ensure that such pollution incidents are not repeated.

Penalty notice fines for water pollution offences increased last August from $1500 to $15,000.