April 5, 2013

Contractors will begin work next week to reline a sewerage trunk main near River Road, Kingaroy, which suffered a partial failure during the February floods.

South Burnett Regional Council installed a pump at the time to bypass the collapsed main.

South Burnett Water and Sewerage Manager Russell Hood told southburnett.com.au today the repairs should take about a fortnight.

The contractors will reline a 375mm main that runs from the gully behind BGA to the western side of the Bunya Highway, near Ken Mills Toyota.

“They’ll be pulling a new pipe through the old one so it shouldn’t take too long,” Mr Hood said.

The main is one of the original sewerage mains installed in Kingaroy during World War II and had been scheduled for upgrading. It has suffered several collapses in recent times.

Mr Hood said it appeared the latest problem had been caused by stormwater getting into it.

“There is obviously some inflow of stormwater into the system that we don’t know about,” he said.

Later this year Council staff plan to conduct tests around Kingaroy – pumping smoke into the lines – to try to find out where this stormwater was coming from.

Gutters and drains are sometimes illegally connected to the sewerage system but Mr Hood said it also occurred accidentally, when drainage from new sheds or garages were connected into the wrong pipeline.

FLASHBACK:  The pump being used to bypass the sewerage main failure in February