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A trevally caught from the Dundee foreshore rocks

Matt Flynn's Northern Territory
fishing report: May 29, 2005

Also available in the Darwin Sunday
newspaper, Sunday Territorian


With the industrialisation of Darwin foreshores well under way and revelations that Darwin's Power and Water Authority is one of only three Australian utilities to be pumping raw sewage the sea, Territorians have every right to be concerned about the harbour's future.

The Northern Territory News revealed that about 2000 million litres of raw sewage is pumped into Darwin Harbour every year, the equivalent to about 1000 Olympic swimming pools _ almost 5.5 million litres a day.

A further 15,000 million litres of treated sewage from Darwin and Palmerston is also pumped in the harbour each year.

Raw sewage - that means it is simply chopped up a bit - is piped into the deep harbour channel at Larrakeyah.

The area is not unknown to anglers because of ever-present sea birds, which hover overhead as if there are pelagic feeding below, but there's never a tuna in sight.

The state of Darwin's sewage system has been a topic of this fishing column many times.

As if the Larrakeyah outfall isn't bad enough, the Ludmilla outfall off East Point is so short the sewage slick swings around to an area where people fish and swim - I have seen the slick drift up to swimmers on the beach adjacent to the gun turret.

The foreshore also smells bad on the Ludmilla side of East Point.

I find it hard to believe that the release of 5.5 millions of raw sewage a day hasn't changed the harbour environment. Long-time divers have told me the harbour is less clear now than it was years ago.

There are four other sewage discharge points in Darwin Harbour _ one near Palmerston, one at East Point, one at Berrimah and one into Buffalo Creek. All sewage discharged through these points is treated first.

Power and Water told the Northern Territory News that studies were being carried out to determine the environmental impact of pumping sewage into the harbour.

``We are going to see if we can model the impacts of each of the discharge points on the harbour _ to see where it goes and what it does,'' a spokesman said.

Power and Water is apparently upgrading the Ludmilla treatment plant to double its size and take sewage from the city - not something Ludmilla residents will be pleased to hear about given the suburb already cops a smell from the plant. The upgrade project could take a decade.

Unfortunately all sorts of things end up in sewage, including pollutants. Are cod caught from the Peary wreck close to the Larrakeyah outfall OK for the table?

Fish such as cod, jewfish, queenfish, trevally, barra and salmon eat the small fish that no doubt feed on sewage particles and as is well known, toxins accumulate in the larger fish.

Viruses and bacteria too are known to be a risk from sewage.

And what of mud crabs that have eaten shellfish that live in the sediment of Buffalo Creek? Are they safe?

Perhaps Power Water could test resident fish from the wrecks in the vicinity of the CBD, and some of Buffalo Creek's mud crabs. We would all like to know the results.
     

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