Have your say

WE have heard a lot over the past four years about the Water Corporation’s plans to recycle wastewater from the sewage treatment plant at Craigie and inject this into the ground to ‘replenish’ our diminishing groundwater supplies.

Now is the time to have your say on the construction and operation of the full-scale groundwater replenishment scheme as the Corporation is seeking works approval to build the plant.

The impact and layout of the scheme is detailed in the works approval application that is on the Corporation’s website at Groundwater Replenishment Scheme stage 1 and go to the Environmental Approvals tab.

The period for public comment will close on January 27 and submissions need to be sent to the Department of Environmental Regulation’s Booragoon office before then. Building is planned to start in July and continue for 18 months. Infrastructure will be built over nine hectares (six footy ovals).

To date the Water Corporation and government authorities have not fully informed nearby residents of the size, proximity and impact of the full-scale plant. Some residents will be as close as 100 metres and the impact on them not properly assessed.

People living in Warrandyte Drive, Adelaide Circle, Napoleon Way, Addingham Court, Loch View, Mandarin Court and Gem Cove who have homes that back on to the Corporation’s Beenyup treatment plant in Craigie will be affected most by increases in noise, dust, vibration, trucks, earth-moving machinery and loss of visual amenity.

An adequate buffer between the construction and adjoining houses is omitted from any plans. A screening vegetation barrier along the western side of the wastewater treatment plant would shield residents from a lot of the nuisance of industrial activity.

Sylvia Tetlow, Craigie