Makes one think twice about sailing near the airport. From abc.net:

Sydney river given 'open sewer' status
Updated October 24, 2011 09:01:23

Researchers have found Sydney's Cooks River is so contaminated that the waterway is little more than an open sewer. The Water Research Centre at the University of New South Wales ran tests on the river, which flows from the city's inner west into Botany Bay. The tests found quantities of pharmaceutical and industrial chemicals in concentrations similar to those found in untreated sewage.

The contaminants included soaps, insecticides, caffeine and anticonvulsants.
Researcher Stuart Khan says the river will not recover until broken sewerage systems are fixed.

"The sewer systems in that area are leaking continuously. They're very old, some of them are close to 100 years old," Dr Khan said.

"The first objective would be to fix the broken sewers, which continuously release sewage into the river.

"But that's a huge job. It's not something that can be done in a week or a year, it's probably at least a decade's worth of serious dedication."

stehsegler said...

the real question is: "What's the water quality like where it flows into Botany Bay?"

its terrible ....lots of "Petrochemical Water Contaminants" also known as PWC's

This is great news. I'm just now thinking about all the times I stood around in the water for hours, right at the mouth, waiting for the wind gusts to do some speed runs. It looked ugly and felt slimy!


No wonder all those jelly fish plagues we had few years ago all died off!

All that dredging recently would have stirred things up too.Not very comforting.

Slimy water = less water resistance = faster speeds. Sorry, what was the issue again?

Yes I remember in them early nineties the crowd that sailed at La Pa would always say they would never go near Kyeemah because of the filthy Cooks River.But I've never heard of anyone getting sick.isn't the EPA supposed to monitor these things?

what about body parts floating along though Des....?