Saturday 22 February 2014

Stormwater Treatment

One of the things I really liked about the Eastern Beaches Coastal Walk was the amount of environmental information along the way. Not just planting regeneration schemes and public amenity facilities, but really pragmatic stuff like how they deal with the stormwater runoff. This storage and treatment plant, with it's schematic diagram to show you how it all works, is at Clovelly, but back up near Bondi and several other places there are lovely little man made runnels that blend in between path and natural wind sculptured rock to direct water down the cliff in a controlled way. There was an info board there too, but none of the photos of the mossy rivulets nor the explanatory text came out -- too much sun on the day.

Stormwater can pick up a considerable range of pollutants on its natural route to the sea here. The water is monitored particularly for faecal matter, but there can be a variety of 'leachates' present (eg heavy metals). As far as possible the stormwater is channelled and held before being sent through filters and baffles to exit onto the beach, or be recycled to people's homes.
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Loire Valley Nature:  A new entry has been added for dry limestone ridge habitat.

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