Council working to address sewerage testing results
Date published: 7 February 2020
Townsville City Council plans to double its sewerage testing program, after finding monsoon-related damage and illegal connections in the latest smoke testing campaign.
Townsville Water and Waste Committee Chair, Councillor Russ Cook, said the tests found evidence of damage from the monsoon.
“The smoke testing program assessed 2,400 local properties and identified about 180 defects,” Cr Cook said.
“Our crews checked properties in flood-affected suburbs and we found broken fittings and other faults that will need to be fixed.”
Cr Cook said Council will be policing the issue more strictly this year.
“We have notified people with problems in their house and we’ll be working with them to ensure these issues are fixed in a timely manner,” Cr Cook said.
“We are urging people to fix them quickly as they could create more issues if we have more heavy rain.”
Cr Cook said Council has its own issues to attend to.
“The smoke testing was a good exercise for us as we found a number of manhole lids were displaced during the monsoon,” Cr Cook said.
“If everyone works together to make the repairs necessary it will prevent issues with our wastewater system in the future.”
