Storm tanks versus bathing water protection

 

Why you can’t have your cake and eat it.

One of the things I find interesting about engineering solutions to environmental problems is that solving one problem can create another.

Take storm tanks.

Large storm tanks are an important part of protecting our bathing waters. During periods of heavy rainfall, they provide somewhere for excess flows to be held, reducing the likelihood of sewage spills into rivers and coastal waters.

That is a good thing.

Cleaner bathing waters are good for swimmers. Good for tourism. Good for local businesses. Good for people who live near the coast. And good for the environment.

But there is a less attractive side to the solution.

Storm tanks need to be constructed. And once in use they need to be cleaned.

If they aren't, accumulated solids can become a source of unpleasant odours. Cleaning them requires operational activity, including tanker movements, pumps, equipment and people. And because these tanks are often located close to the same coastal communities and recreational areas they are protecting, so the consequences can be felt by the people living, holidaying or spending a day at the beach.

Consequently the same community that benefits from fewer sewage spills may also experience the occasional noise, traffic, activity and smell associated with preventing those spills.

And this is where I think we sometimes struggle with environmental infrastructure.

We understandably want the benefit of the solution without experiencing the consequences of delivering it.

But infrastructure doesn't exist in a vacuum.

If we want cleaner bathing waters, we need somewhere to put storm flows.

If we want those tanks to remain effective and hygienic, they need to be cleaned.

If we want them cleaned, tankers need to access them.

And if we put infrastructure close to the places it protects — which often makes engineering and environmental sense — then people will inevitably experience some of the activity associated with operating it.

None of this means that inconvenience should simply be accepted without question.

There is a responsibility to minimise noise, odour, traffic and disruption. There is a responsibility to design infrastructure intelligently, operate it well and consider the people living alongside it.

But there is also a responsibility to recognise the trade-offs.

We can't simultaneously demand fewer sewage spills and object to every consequence of the infrastructure required to prevent them.

This isn't an argument against cleaner bathing waters.

Quite the opposite.

It's an argument for being honest about what achieving them actually requires.

Environmental improvement is rarely about finding a solution with no downsides.

More often, it's about choosing which impacts we are prepared to accept, reducing those impacts as far as we can, and understanding that sometimes the thing we dislike is actually evidence that something else is working.

You can't have your cake and eat it.

Sometimes you have to decide which bit of the cake matters most..