00:01You just get so many endangered migratory birds feeding up here.
00:06Nestled beside the Powermatta River at Wentworth Point sits an oasis for finned and feathered
00:13inhabitants.
00:15Just kilometres from where we're standing, Sydney Water plans to build a river outlet
00:19by Meadowbank Park.
00:21We're very concerned about potential for a combination of factors, heading over a tipping
00:26point and creating an environmental disaster or larger one.
00:31The project aims to meet the city's growing population and will use treated wastewater
00:36that's meant to be cleaner than the current river water.
00:39Water in this project will be treated to a very high level with lots of safeguards, lots
00:43of redundancy to ensure that only really high quality treated water goes to the environment.
00:48A commitment this former Sydney water scientist is sceptical of.
00:52Pumps break, filters block, all kinds of things can happen.
00:56So you may be able to achieve high quality most of the time, probably not all the time
01:03though.
01:03So we asked Sydney Water what happens if things go wrong.
01:07This project has a fallback mechanism where any off-spec water can go back to the existing
01:11system and only highly quality water will go to Meadowbank.
01:15But that fallback relies on water quality standards set by the New South Wales Environmental Protection
01:21Authority.
01:22The EPA has been very clear on their requirements for us for this project.
01:25And we ordered their clear requirements.
01:27I'd have to go check the documentation on those exact requirements, Digby, I would.
01:29It turns out those limits don't exist yet and the EPA has confirmed they won't be set
01:35until after the project is approved.
01:37Once they've already started doing it, there's no way would they go, oh this isn't any good,
01:42so we'll stop doing it.
01:49Sydney Water says the project is designed so that one day the plant will also provide recycled
01:55water to cool data centres.
01:57The planning proposal has received more than 400 public submissions, most against it.
02:02To me this is community consultation that's come way too late.
02:08We live locally and use this site at least once a month and have not heard anything.
02:15For now the project pushes ahead with outset water quality limits and with its eye on the
02:21growing data centre industry in Western Sydney.
Comments