Service difficulties
and emergency
service: 13 20 90
Reducing dry weather overflows
Overflows during dry weather are caused by blockages in small sewers and from mechnical or electrical failure of sewage pumping stations. Work to reduce overflows from Sydney Water's 655 sewage pumping stations is complete.
About 84 per cent of sewer blockages are
caused by tree roots. (PDF - 83KB)
Sydney Water cleans and rehabilitates its sewer system to prolong its life and prevent reoccurring blockages from invasive tree roots. Almost 100kms of our sewer mains were rehabilitated in 2006-07.
Avoid Fail - rehabilitation of concrete and brick sewers
Some parts of the sewerage system (approximately 3000 kilometres) are over 100 years old and are made from brick or concrete that has deteriorated and corroded over time.
A structural repair program is in place to assess the condition of these sewers and to ensure their structural integrity. This work is ongoing but will occur in the following sewerage systems by 2009:
- South Western Sydney Ocean Outfall System
- Bondi Ocean Outfall System
- Northern Sydney Ocean Outfall System
- Warriewood
- Port Kembla
- Camden
- Cronulla.
To date, SewerFix has rehabilitated sewers in the Botany, Smithfield, Fairfield, Coogee and Illawarra areas.