Sewerage scheme starts with public meeting

A public meeting was held at Rogers Park, Woy Woy, to discuss a sewerage scheme for the Peninsula on March 13, 1977.

Former Shire President Ron Hyndman, who was head of the Pelican Island team that swept the Council elections in 1971, addressed the meeting.

Only two sitting Councillors survived.

Ron's priority was to get a new sewerage scheme and outfall.

Once that was certain, Roy Hyndman resigned from the council.

At the meeting, Ron claimed a Woy Woy loan was used to construct a Passveer Ditch at Wyoming, which discharged sewerage into Narara Creek.

This was a loss of one million dollars of Peninsula loan money and also a loss of sewerage priority.

He said that an interim scheme of a Passveer Ditch for Woy Woy was not on and a motion was then moved for a presidential meeting altering the priority of sewerage.

Federal Member Barry Cohen said he would urge the Australian Government to get more meaningfully involved in the sewerage problems of the Central Coast.

Shire President Malcolm Brookes said the Snake Gully site was not suitable because of the elevation and he said a feasibility study was needed for an interim scheme for Woy Woy.

He said he would oppose anything but a treatment works with the best possible effluent.

The Department of Public Works had offered the services of a skin diver to investigate the pollution of the sewer outfall at Mt Ettymalong.

There was a need to reappraise the Regional Sewerage Scheme.

Also there would be no subsidy if the scheme linked up with the Metropolitan Sewerage and Drainage Board.

State Member Keith O'Connell said that the cost of sewerage at Somersby would have to be met by the industrialists who settled there.

Also that it was essential that the Council asked the NSW Government for reappraisal of the scheme.

Candidate Don Leggett, who was to become Shire President in September of that year, said that the State Pollution Control Commission had not investigated pollution of the Woy Woy area, with the exception of the Mt Ettymalong outfall.

At the end of the meeting, motions were passed calling for; a presidential minute for reappraisal of the scheme, the support of State Member Keith O'Connell and if upon refusal by council, the appointment of an administrator.

Letter, 5 Oct 2016

Keith Whitfield, Woy Woy