Ongoing sewerage problems a drain on residents’ patience

The ongoing issue has affected areas in Kennedy, Oxford, Coode and Carrington streets to Tenth Avenue in Inglewood.

Lorene Clohesy said particularly in winter, after extended rainfall, Kennedy Street East would have sewage back-ups leading to overflowing drains.

‘This is why in our immediate Kennedy Street community we have a health problem each winter after heavy rains with raw sewage and toilet paper bubbling over from sewerage manholes,’ she said.

Mrs Clohesy said block sizes becoming smaller and developers over-building left minimal to no room for soakwells that should be onsite to process stormwater from roofs and hard landscaping surfaces.

‘The long-term illegal solution by some developers therefore is to connect storm- water run-off from a property into the aged sewerage pipes,’ she said. ‘By the time the Water Corporation gets to the offending site, the illegal stormwater has subsided.’

Water Corporation Acting Perth Regional Manager Mike Andrews said wastewater overflows were frequently caused by a build-up of fat or intrusion by tree roots rather than the age of the pipes.

‘The wastewater pipes in this area have enough capacity to serve the existing properties as well as new developments,’ he said.

‘The wastewater main serving Kennedy Street has the capacity to service 720 property connections based on the area’s current zoning and at present, there are less than 80 property connections.

‘Wastewater overflows are rare, and in the Maylands area over half of the blockages are caused by fats, oils, grease and rags building up in wastewater pipes.’

Mayor Sylvan Albert said the City of Bayswater had not received any communication about the issue but that any uncontrolled release of sewage would be of concern to the City if public health or environmental issues were involved.