Water quality

Storm water pollution is now the major concern and swimmers are advised to avoid the surf beaches and ocean baths for some days after heavy rain.

Water quality concerns led to the recent closure of the South Maroubra rock pools.

Pollution of ocean beaches and baths has been from the following sources:
- garbage disposal at sea or at sites near the beach,
- ocean outfall of sewage systems,
- septic systems,
- storm water pollution, and
- dressing sheds with pan system toilets easily overturned by strong waves.

Sewage
Disposal of untreated human waste in the ocean via sewage outfalls undeniably reduces water quality at the beaches and ocean baths in Sydney and Merewether.

During the 1860s, the sewers in Sydney had five main outlets into Sydney Harbour at Blackwattle Bay, Darling Harbour, Sydney Cove, Fort Macquarie and Woolloomooloo Bay. By 1890, all the city's drainage and the sewage of some  18,000 houses drained and into Sydney harbour through these pipes. Construction and maintenance of the sewage system was cheaper than building and staffing typhoid hospitals, and people believed that the bays around the city would cleanse themselves and became usable again.

Eventually, this unacceptable pollution of Sydney Harbour led to plans for ocean outfalls. The NSW government took the responsibility for providing sewerage systems from the municipal councils and set up a new Sewerage and Health Board which planned sewer outlets at Cooks River and at Ben Buckler, Bondi Beach. By 1889, the main pipes were completed  and 70,000 houses were connected.

A further ocean outfall at Long Bay eventually discharged even more effluent than the sewer outlets at Manly and Bondi. The practice of discharging untreated or minimally treated sewage into the ocean caused pollution problem for the beaches and baths at Bondi from the 1880s and the Malabar rock pool from 1916.  Despite complaints from coastal council and communities, connecting houses to the sewer continued to take priority over treating the sewage before discharging it into the ocean.

Councils and coastal communities could not prevent the water authority from discharging sewage near the ocean baths and beaches or persuade it to treat the sewage sufficiently to keep the water quality at the baths and surf beaches with safe limits. Water pollution from sewage discharged at Sydney's Malabar ocean outfall threatened the health of bathers resulting in a long closure of the Malabar baths and an end to use of the Little Bay  Rock Pool. Only the construction of deep ocean outfalls in the late twentieth century finally ended sewage pollution of Sydney's ocean beaches and baths.

Similar pollution problems were associated with the provision of Newcastle's sewerage system. The main outlet for the sewage system constructed in 1907 to improve public health in Newcastle had its outlet at Merewether Beach near a site intended for ocean baths. In that instance, the NSW government offered to pay for the cost of ocean baths once the pollution problems were addressed. Twenty years later, funds set aside for that purpose funded construction of the first Merewether Baths, although pollution problems remained severe. Amplification of Newcastle's sewage scheme in 1935 greatly reduced pollution problems at Merewether's baths.

On the Central Coast, installation of sewage systems eliminated pollution from septic systems at Avoca Beach.

Further Information

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