Luggage Point Poo Shute

[fishphile]

A mate took me out to Luggage Point last night and we virtually fished right off the treated sewerage outlet. Mostly big catties and rays and 1 30cm Bream which I promptly released. My question is, Would you have any issues with eating fish caught in this area? The heavy stench of chlorine was enough to give me a headache. Each to his own in my opinion but to those who wouldn't at about 2am - 3am the prawn trawlers worked the area heavily within about 50 metres of the outlet. Just curious as to your opinions.

Cheers Dave.

[insideout]

personally, i wouldnt, but ,who knows ? we may be drinking it soon.......

[aussie_true_blue]

I would be wary of any fish that smokes big cigars.

Bob

[Callop]

I used to know a guy who worked for BCC sewerage dept. I asked him about it and here is a summary.

Basically there is 3 levels of treatment.
primary is where they remove the solids.
secondary most of the bad stuff is gone.
tertiary is supposedly safe to drink.

It is all supposed to be tertiary treated before going into the river but the problem comes after heavy rain. A lot of stormwater but not all goes into the sewerage system and therefore has to be treated. If the treatment plant cannot cope with the volume then it will only be treated as best as they can. This may mean that some is only treated to secondary level.
He did assure me that it is all treated to primary level.

I haven't been to the shute since.

[robyoung2]

Not too sure how popular it is to fish the poo shute anymore, but when I was a teenager (30 years back), people frequently fished for bream there. Good catches into the 50s and so were common for a few hours on a good night.

I never ate a fish from there, but most did. People worked on the assumption if it didn't kill the fish, then it was safe for humans. (I don't subscribe to this). They also claimed it was treated by the biological processes of the fish itself (wishful thinking I reckon).

At the time, people could sell some of their catch legally to fish shops, the co-op etc, but in time they banned fish caught from around luggae point. I don't know how they discerned this.

The upshot is I would never do it, but some very close freinds ate them regualry, and are alive and well to this day lol.

cheers
rob

Ps. I don't know what goes on at luggage point poo farm anymore, but around the same time I mentioned my experience, a mate worked there. It was supposed to be well treated (certainly not drinkable at that time) before it exited to the sea. The reality was it was just as frequently let go "raw" as it was "treated. during peak times (I suppose before work?), it just couldn't cope with the rush (you only had to be present when they opened the gates to smell it wasn't as clean as they claimed; just as you mentioned). It was made public ina big way this was going on, and I supposed addressed? One of the reasons I detest the idea of drinking sewrage is because prior to the truth being revealed about how the raw sewrage was let to sea, it was touted by politicains how wonderfully "clean" it was. It was discovered to be all crap (haha).

[theoldlegend]

Too many Churchill bream from around there.


TOL

[Poodroo]

Well techically fish eat where they poo anyway. We only eat their meat and not their intestines. Logic tells me that it would be safe to eat fish that hover around the poo chute but I still have troubles bringing myself to actually catching and eating fish from there. Each to their own I guess.

Poodroo

[sharkbaithoohaha]

Don't drink water either -cause fish F@#K in it!!The locatin of the poo chute is such that there is good tidal flow there twice a day.I don't know if it would be any different at the rock wall at the mouth???In saying that, I've never fished there.
Cheers.

[snapperbug]

I have eaten bream from there once before, I thought they had a bit of a yuck taste but It may have been in my head. I went on to catch many more there but I didn't eat them again. Not exactly a scientific evidence one way or the other, just my experience.

[PinHead]

I wouldn't worry about it too much..let us hypothesize..you catch a 40cm bream at Mud Island...you bewdy...take some pics and take it home and into the pan...are you aware that that same fish may have just spent the previous 4 weeks languishing at the outfall pipe at Luggage Point.

[Hamish73]

I wouldn't worry about it too much..let us hypothesize..you catch a 40cm bream at Mud Island...you bewdy...take some pics and take it home and into the pan...are you aware that that same fish may have just spent the previous 4 weeks languishing at the outfall pipe at Luggage Point.
right on! The bream I caught on the rock wall (only a few hundred metres away) tasted ok.
Just like the %$@# that say they wont drink recycled water... but thats another story

[Scalem]

My problem with eating fish from these sorts or areas extends from seeing a documentary about arsenic, lead and heavy metals that are retained in the fish's body, not anything to do with their intestinal contents. The study found that fish that were being kept by fishermen caught at different locations including Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane rivers had varying levels of toxins in their body. In some cases the levels were higher than Health Standards considered "normal" and in extreem cases, considered these levels unsafe for repeated human consumption. As I understand it, once we ingest some of these, our bodies never shed them, accumulated and kept forever.

The quality of the water at LP might be OK, but if I had a choice of which fish I was intending to keep for the dinner table, there's a million other places I can catch them, so why there?

Scalem

[moondancer]

Used to work near Aquarium Passage..the home of many 'churchill bream'.....I know what goes into that water, and when given a choice between eating fish from water that is fresh, recycled or that stuff...well......turning vegtarian is a good option!!

[Obi _ Wan]

This thread brings back memories of years gone, Churchill bream, bream that taste of kerosene etc, i for one would not eat a fish that come from that area.

Years ago when i lived in Sydney i used to fish in competitions run by the amateur anglers association and so was involved in a comp. just about every second weekend.
This era brings back memories of a chap who used to fish with the Bluefish Club, they used to fish the North Head area, yes you got it the sewerage outfall. This guy tried to get me to go fishing with him at that location, he said the pigs (rock black fish or drummer) grow really big there, when you hook them you can feel them running back up the pipe! I can tell you that really put me off.

Another storey was that one of the members of the club i was in (not bluefish) won a prize for the biggest French fish, seems he was trolling wide of North Head when his lure hooked a condom, apparently the trebles hooked in very neatly around the end of it and the harder he pulled the more water was contained in the condom and the harder the French fish pulled. Poor bugger thought he had a decent fish on.

Another storey was that divers went down and found that there was a very thick bed of a gelatinous substance sitting on the seabed, the fish were swimming through this muck! Now if that dosen't put you off eating fish from these locations nothing will.

I should add that this was in the days when they quite often pumped raw sewage out to sea.

Cheers,
Obi_Wan

[tunaman]

That wouldnt be bondi murks by any chance. Great fishing, but bad smell.



signed tunaman

[Obi _ Wan]

Tunaman, not Bondi murk, North Head murk, and yes the smell was extremely bad, even from a mile away and i just can not handle that particular smell.

When i moved to Brisbane 30 years ago a mate that had moved up a couple of years earlier took me fishing down to Luggage Point, and oh hell wasn't it rotten, there were a lot of people there pulling big catties and others draging in bream. I could not handle the stench or the bloody sandflies that were there by the billions, they blacked out the sky and i went home without throwing a line in.

Cheers,
Obi_Wan

[tunaman]

I never fished north head, but I remember the days at bondi, and the smell was bad when a east wind was on the blow. It was a hell of a dangerous place to fish.
I never ate the fish from there, but the fish loved it. From memory, there was a steel cable going out to a small island. I was not that brave.



signed tunaman

[Greg P]

I was watching some show on Nat Geo tonight that reminded me of this post so here are some useless fish fart facts from it

Did you know;
It is believed some bait fish schools (herring) communicate with each other by farting,
those oily slicks you see around bait schools are from the baitfish releasing air from their swim bladder to create fart bubbles to allude predators by diving quicker,
the best one from some researches was that the larger the school of herring the more they tended to fart (ahhh thanks for that guys)Anyway thats it on the fart facts and don't bring any sucker fish on board if you get one at Luggo Point ::)8-);D

[tunaman]

Did you know, you might not be a well man. hehehe


signed tunaman. Gez! Its hard being at the top! When god made Queensland, he said it would be beautiful one day and perfect the next.

Why he only half filled it with great people, still remains mystery!hehehe;D ;D ;D

[slyman]

My brother and I fished down that way many times last year, never ate anything from there, but on several occasions we pulled out big lumps of what appeared to be dunny roll, along with lots of little moses perch and a huge stonefish. This was upstream from the outlet, but before the wharf.

[BAR UP]

Non of youse will have to worry about treatment plant outlets much longer. State Govt are building Reverse Osmosis plants on both northside (Luggage Point) & southside (Gibson Island). These plants will transform the current outlet water into drinkable water to be pumped back to Swanbank Powerstation & Wivenhoe Dam. Construction is due to start shortly after Easter & last for around 2 years.:-X

[fishphile]

After reading everyones opinions I have personally decided to only fish the area for sport. The potential for Bream on poppers and surface softies is too great for me to resist. Cheers for everyones input. May you all be free of churchill Bream (First time I've ever heard the expression)

Cheers Dave.

[Brett1907]

People eat fish they caught at the Southport Seaway all the time. I guess most of them aren't aware of the sewerage pipeline in the middle of it. Personally it doesn't bother me too much there cause the tidal flow is unbeleivable. Don't know how I'd go eating a fish caught while standing on the poo shute.

Brett

[Sea-Dog]

One nasty person I knew, suggested that the Bondi sewerage outfall was a cultural exchange program with New Zealand ::)

Sea-Dog

[robyoung2]

Simpson creek, the south arm of the Brunswick river is a good example of muck from sewrage.
Now if anywhere in this country has a vested intrerest in keeping a place pristine, clean etc, it would have to be the Byron Bay districts for their tourism trade right?

When I first began to live at Bruns, I stayed in a caravan right on Simpson ck, (terrace caravan park), and the sand was white, clean and grainy. Now it's almost pure sewrage on the creek bottom, and the outgoing tide is typically a stream of crap floating on the surface.

Even with the incredibly heavy pressure from the mirriad environmental lobbyists there, and the commerce industry being concerned about the local "prettyness" of the place, and the local "progress committee" for the town; Simpson ck is now considered to be one of, if not "the" most poluted creeks in the country.

The sewrage works is on the bend of the creek, a few hundred metres upstream from the terrace caravan park.

The white sandy bottom is now a glugy muddy stinking mess. If you're stupid enough to walk through it, (we used to swim there before this happened), the crap is almost impossible to wash off ya feet with a normal garden hose. The stench is enough to knock ya over.

With this becoming a huge issue between the greenies anbd concerned business groups against local council's sewarge practices, the council has provided endless evidence the outlet of the sewrage plant is above reproach. They have scienitific "evidence" it's almost good enough to drink, and can be no way responsible for the white sand turning to crud! They claim it is the state of the art plant, the best of the best sewrage practices..

How does this effect fish caught in it all? Well who knows, but the heavy metal arguement already raised in a very serious concern. Not tomention who knows what bacterial diseases. But it's also dead right fish caught at even redclife may well have had a chomp to eat at the brissie river on the way, not to mention Sandgate, shorncliffe, etc etc. I mean it's only a couple kilometres. And as mentioned , I have mates who have eated fish from there for years and they're very healthy people.

But as for those "%%$$##@@" (such as myself) who object to drink recyled crap and piss, I suppose maybe we're just not so gullible?
Imagine believing something is "just so" because the "experts" say it is. Well, the TV news seems to say it's clean, I suppose it has to be , right?

Didn't like 200 scientists swear under oath to the United States congress that there is no link between smoking cigarettes and cancer? They even "proved" smoking is not addictive! This wasn't done in ignorance, it was a well rehearsed lie by people who themselves had financed the research into the claims, simply so they had control over just what "evidences" were made public, and which were filed away forever under the incinerator.

Equal amount of reports show smoking cannabis is either so dangerous we're all in danger of madmen attacking us in our beds, to smoking cannabis being good to treat everything from dementia to diabetes.

You copuld fill a book on reports that are made to support a certain end result that has historically been shown tobe complete lies.

The last person I'd trust is a politician with his back against the wall relying on scientific "evidence" that exonerated the position they want to take.


cheers'
rob

[searchinthebay]

obi_wan can you please tell me why anyone in their right mind would dive anywhere near a sewerage outfall?

[robyoung2]

Why dive at a sewrage outfall? It's all about the money. Imagine how many gold coins get flushed down the dunny each day by accident?

rob

[searchinthebay]

Does that mean we wil get money pouring out of our taps soon///.....Sounds interesting

[alby-mac]

watched asians jagging mullet by the dozen about 18 years ago of the poo pipe and the mate and myself threw the cast net over a couple of hooter mullet. the mate banged the sides of one and took it home for his man. then came the egg and bread crumbs a quick blast in the pan. it only took one bite and the fresh feed of fish hit the bin. got our asses kicked when we told him where we caught them never forget the look on his face . he he