August 29, 2019
South Burnett Regional Council is planning plans to build a Stock Effluent Disposal Facility near the Stuart River Rural Fire Brigade shed on the Bunya Highway.
At last week’s Council meeting, Council officers unveiled a plan to build the facility on land once used by the former Kingaroy Shire Council for liquid waste disposal.
Officers told the meeting Council has been receiving an increasing number of complaints from residents and businesses, particularly in Kingaroy, about effluent spillages in the town.
There had also been significant intentional effluent releases along transport corridors outside the region’s town and village areas by transport operators who were attempting to minimise spillages in built-up areas.
Officers said a number of meetings with key stakeholders had been held to find a solution to the problem.
But funding was the main hurdle.
Officers said the advantages of the former Kingaroy Liquid Waste Disposal site was that it was located on the Bunya Highway where it could be easily accessed by northbound traffic, and Council already owned the land.
Against this, an exit lane would need to be constructed off the Bunya Highway into the site, and an entry lane back on to the highway after the truck dump point.
Appropriately sized septic tanks would also have to be incorporated into the on-site effluent management system, along with a number of evaporation ponds, although existing evaporation ponds on the site could be reinstated and utilised as well.
They estimated the total cost of these upgrades would be $800,000.
Depending on the revenue raised from facility users, the Council would also have to fund about $30,000 a year in operational costs.
Councillors voted to include half the cost of building the facility in its application to the State Government’s Building Our Regions Fund, along with half the cost of a planned $680,000 upgrade to Kingaroy’s Alford Street car park.
If the grant application was successful, the remaining half of the cost of both projects would be funded by Council.
If it was not, the project would be reviewed by Council and possibly included in a future capital works program.
