Heavy rain on Friday night forced raw, untreated sewage to be pumped into the Brisbane River for two hours after a fault at Queensland Urban Utilities' main sewage plant at Eagle Farm.
The storm rains flooded the sewer pipes at Eagle Farm, forcing the raw sewage into the Brisbane River at three locations; Coronation Drive at Toowong, Lytton Road at East Brisbane and at Eagle Farm for two hours at an unsubstantiated 5000 litres of untreated sewage per second.
A former staff member emailed Fairfax's Brisbane Times to say raw sewage was "pouring into the Brisbane River at the moment at a rate of around 5000 litres per second."
"They had several failures to their five pumps earlier in the week," the source said.
"And then they shut down two of the pumps later this week for planned maintenance even though they had the issues earlier and forecasts of rain all week."
"This has been happening for quite a while now – sewage spills into creeks and rivers as well as security breaches and vermin problems at water reservoirs."
An employee at the Eagle Farm plant on Saturday morning directed all enquiries to Queensland Urban Utilities media team.
Queensland Urban Utilities on Saturday said a combination of an electrical fault at their Eagle Farm main pump plant combined with the wet weather created the problem.
"Friday's sudden downpour impacted the Eagle Farm Pump Station in Bunya Street, which pumps sewage to the Luggage Point Sewage Treatment Plant," a statement from Queensland Urban Utilities said.
It caused what they described as a "wet weather overflow".
"Wet weather overflows occur when the sewer network becomes flooded with stormwater.
"Although sewer pipes are designed to carry five times the average dry weather flows, they can still become inundated with stormwater during heavy rain," the statement said.
Worsening the situation was an electrical fault at 4pm on Friday at the same pump plant at Eagle Farm.
"Eagle Farm Pump Station normally has two pumps operating during dry weather, with a third pump brought online if required during wet weather," the statement read.
"Due to yesterday's electrical fault, a third pump was unavailable, which impacted the ability of the pump station to meet the increased wet weather flow.
"As a result, a wet weather overflow occurred into the river just before 6pm for a period of around two hours."
This raw sewage being released to the Brisbane River was reported to the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection.
"The waste water that entered the river was heavily diluted by storm water and dispersed quickly," the statement read.
"We're still assessing the volume of the overflow."
Queensland Urban Utilities said their environmental assessment on Saturday showed no impact on the river.
"Water sampling upstream and downstream of the overflow and initial results show no increased ammonia levels or decreased oxygen levels."
"We're investigating the cause of the electrical fault and working to bring the third pump back online as quickly as possible for wet weather contingency."
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