Officials are telling people not to swim or fish along a section of the popular Gold Coast Broadwater ahead of the busy Christmas period, due to a sewage leak.<\/p>\n
Signs warning people against swimming, water skiing, jet skiing, or fishing have been installed by the local council around Quota Park at Biggera Waters overnight.<\/p>\n
People have also been advised to keep their pets out of the water.<\/p>\n
“Residents are urged to follow signage advising against direct water contact, as it may cause illness to humans and animals,” a City of Gold Coast spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Affected locations include the Ryder Park boat ramp, Quota Park, Stradbroke North Park, and along Coombabah Road and Lae Drive.<\/p>\n
The area just north of Surfers Paradise is a popular location for recreational boaties and swimmers.<\/p>\n
The council spokesperson said that a sewer main broke at Harbour Quays Drive, around 2 kilometres west of the Broadwater, on Monday night.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sign warning people not to swim at the Broadwater, Biggera Waters. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n
The leak was contained within 24 hours, according to council, however it is believed about 0.4 megalitres (400,000 litres) of wastewater was released onto surrounding land and into Biggera Creek.<\/p>\n
Council said water quality testing had shown higher levels than normal of enterococci in the creek and surrounding canals.<\/p>\n
“Heavy rainfall may have also contributed to the higher levels,” the council statement said.<\/p>\n
The city said no recreational swimming areas had been impacted and warned people in the area to be “alert but not alarmed”.<\/p>\n
Further testing would be conducted within the next 24 hours, council said, and would continue “until the water quality improves”.<\/p>\n
Residents have also been advised via letterbox drops and doorknocking.<\/p>\n
The spokesperson earlier said people should not eat crabs and fish from the area, including nearby canals, for 72 hours.<\/p>\n
“We apologise for the inconvenience as we undertake repairs,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Runaway Bay resident Sam Kumm spotted the signs on Wednesday morning but said many other people were unaware.<\/p>\n
“Just past the signs were people with their kids swimming, people in the water with their dogs,” she said.<\/p>\n
She said it was “frustrating” at the time that there were no details behind the warnings.<\/p>\n
“It lacks transparency,” she said.<\/p>\n
“It just is worrying because we can find [the signs] maybe a bit more easily, but having visitors here looking at the beautiful water thinking they can jump in and them not knowing what’s going on.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials are telling people not to swim or fish along a section of the popular Gold Coast Broadwater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[199772,2467,199773,43,6058,44,198035,40302,115738,41,39,42,40,59056],"class_list":{"0":"post-368666","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-broadwater","9":"tag-council","10":"tag-harbour-quays-drive","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-leak","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-sewage","15":"tag-sewerage","16":"tag-spill","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-waterways"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}