Ipswich City Council

Ipswich Water > Non Residential > Wastewater Services >

Source Control, Community Health and the Environment

An efficient wastewater system helps protect public health, safety and the environment. Wastewater systems (sewers) convey wastewater from homes, industries, hospitals and commercial institutions to treatment facilities for safe disposal.

While our treatment system is highly capable of treating wastewater to a ‘fit for purpose' standard, it is often more efficient to prevent contaminants from entering the collection system in the first instance - this is known as source water control.

The community shares our responsibility to ensure our wastewater system is not compromised by interference or the discharge of non-sewerable wastes.

Ipswich Water has a long history of managing source water control through the application of our Trade Waste Policy which regulates the introduction of contaminants to the wastewater system from our commercial trade waste customers (i.e. through the prohibition of some contaminants and setting concentration and mass load limits for others).

This activity has become even more important now that treated wastewater forms the source water for the supply of high quality recycled water from our Springfield Advanced Water Treatment Plant (AWTP) and the Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme.

Your Responsibilities

You need to ensure that:

manholes can be accessed at all times for maintenance purposes and emergency situations;
you do not build any structure above the wastewater system as loads may cause damage and excavation of the pipes may be required in future;
you take care with waste disposal as foreign objects dumped into the wastewater system can cause severe overflows of sewage in private properties and waterways; and
you are aware that stormwater cannot enter the wastewater system. Connections of roof drains to wastewater systems are illegal under State legislation as it can create excess flows causing an overflow to the environment and some potentially serious public health concerns.

Overflows are health hazards and damage the environment causing expensive clean up bills. Therefore it is crucial our wastewater systems are protected from blockage caused by foreign objects and inappropriate wastes.

Faults and Emergencies

Last Updated 16 Oct 2007 |

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