Looks delightful, doesn’t it? But according to this article from The Age, the Harper St drain in Abbotsford is a major spewer of human excrement into the Yarra, which we are advised to avoid for 5 days after heavy rain. So too, eating the eels, which are full up of longlife industrial poison which is not good for us.
According to a later article by Stephen Cauchi in The Age on 15 January 2006, the government is not doing enough to fix the problem:
“ONLY a tiny fraction of the State Government’s Yarra River clean-up package will be spent on fixing illegal sewerage connections, the main source of human faeces in the city end of the river, the State Opposition and water experts said yesterday.
Announcing its Yarra River Action Plan on Friday, the Government pledged $250 million over 20 years to convert 18,500 septic tanks to the sewerage system in the Yarra’s rural stretches.
But critics pointed out that only $930,000 was being spent over three years to track down urban faecal pollution from blocked sewers and illegal connections between the stormwater and sewerage systems.
This urban faecal pollution, which the Government has admitted is largely of human origin, has contributed to five Yarra pollution “hot spots” identified by the Environment Protection Authority: main drains in the city, Kew, Abbotsford and Prahran and the junction with Gardiners Creek at Toorak.”