A giant fatberg, potentially the size of four Sydney buses, within Sydney Water’s Malabar deepwater ocean sewer has been identified as the likely source of the debris balls that washed up on Sydney beaches a year ago.
Sydney Water isn’t sure exactly how big the fatberg is because it can’t easily access where it has accumulated.
Fixing the problem would require shutting down the outfall – which reaches 2.3km offshore – for maintenance and diverting sewage to “cliff face discharge”, which would close Sydney’s beaches “for months”, a secret report obtained by Guardian Australia states.
“The working hypothesis is FOG [fats, oils and grease] accumulation in an inaccessible dead zone between the Malabar bulkhead door and the decline tunnel has potentially led to sloughing events, releasing debris balls,” the report concludes.
“This chamber was not designed for routine maintenance and can only be accessed by taking the DOOF offline and diverting effluent to the cliff face for an extended period (months), which would close Sydney beaches.”
“Cleaning up the massive rancid fat lump on the beach would be too much work, so we’re just not gonna. It would inconvenience beach goers.”
That’s not quite it. The wastewater treatment plant is located high up on the cliffs above the ocean. It has a big pipe that they tunneled through bedrock so it discharges at the bottom of the ocean 2.3km from shore. The fatberg is in the junction between the plant and the pipe. To clean it out, they’d have to stop using the big drain pipe, and y’know, just dump sewage off the edge of the cliff into the ocean, pretty much right onto the beach.
Oh, I got the impression it was just… Floating there right out in the ocean.
How the fuck is this not an engineering problem they must have foreseen? I mean now what, the pipes just stay clogged? What a literal shitfest.
IKR? The need for maintenance eventually should be foreseen! If they went to all the trouble to put a pipe through bedrock, why not put 2 pipes, so there’s a backup?
The need for maintenance is forseen, but it’s generally deferred. There was probably a plan to do something every year or two, but they weren’t willing to shut the beach down for a week or so. A second pipe would be absurdly expensive.
I want to hear FriendlyJordies take on this. I bet it’s going to end up being a case of low bid mafia-connected contractors building the damn thing.
Jaws but with a fatberg instead of a shark
“Titanic and The Aquatic Mountain of Lard”
Makes me think, maybe we could weigh it down so it falls to the bottom of the sea, and then all those weird eels and bizarro sharks would munch it up. The recycle of life.
Maybe they can mine it…and turn it into luxury soap…that’s what I learned from survival games at least.
I like your drive! …So I looked it up. First off, you can’t. Because that’s not a thing that is done. Second off, you can’t. Because it isn’t yours to keep. Even if you wanted to and offered to take care of it, it’s a maritime thing and technically it belongs to the state. Let me break it down for you with this imaginary, but realistic, exchange:
“We are not going to remove the rancid fat berg. It’s too expensive.”
“Oh. Ok. Can I take it?”
“NO! IT’S MINE!”
OOOO I’ll save this in my bag for later