$16bn bombshell: 1m Aus homes under threat<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg)
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Mackay Mayor Greg Williamson and Kimberley Armstrong from Bluewater Lagoon venue manager Belgravia Leisure, Source: Mackay Regional Council.<\/p>\n
The Mackay Regional Council has begun a campaign \u201cto keep the poo out of the pool\u201d, with Mr Williamson saying \u201cit might sound a little bit flippant, but there\u2019s quite a serious note to it as well\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time there\u2019s a code brown at our fantastic swimming facilities, it costs us somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000, and we\u2019ve had nine of them since the end of September.\u201d<\/p>\n
The incidents result in the immediate shutdown of lagoon and public swimming facilities, with clean-up and public health procedures seeing swimming banned for hours at a time, sometimes up to half a day, as crews drain, treat and test the water to make it safe again.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very expensive exercise,\u201d he said, \u201cand not to mention the actual non-monetary cost like kids\u2019 birthday parties have had to be cancelled or postponed, lots of pool users just go home empty-handed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the clean-up bill alone had already climbed to around $30,000 for Mackay alone since September, with the broader cost including a new awareness campaign and free swim nappies expected to hit up to $50,000 by the time swim season is over.<\/p>\n
The council has partnered with Bluewater Lagoon venue manager Belgravia Leisure to have swim nappies available for free on site as part of the prevention measures.<\/p>\n
Asked what number was the final straw, Mr Williamson said he\u2019d say two but it was around number 8 or 9 that \u201cwe got to the point of $30,000 in public expenditure actually trying to solve this code brown, saying we have to do something\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said the focus was not on punishment but on prevention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not here to be punitive, but we\u2019re here to say there\u2019s a way to save $30,000 of unbudgeted expenditure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The solution, he said, was to use swim nappies, take toilet breaks and be prepared before getting in the water – with one code brown accident able to end everyone\u2019s day at the pool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Aussie mayor has lifted the lid on a costly – and surprisingly common – problem warning a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-566672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566672","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=566672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}