Wannon Water announces suite of safeguards following fat ball incident on Warrnambool's Shelly Beach

Volunteers expressed shock when they cleared hundreds of waxy pieces of congealed oil, grease and hair, called "fat balls", from Warrnambool's Shelly Beach earlier this month.

In a public notice this week the water authority wrote that the fat balls were "from previous events when two manual outlet screens at the plant have been removed during high flows".

Wannon Water managing director Andrew Jeffers told The Standard the last event was in August this year and was reported to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA).

"When the plant is operating normally, we are very confident that solid materials are being captured in the screening process. However, regardless of what measures we put in place, we can never predict when a high-flow or unusual event may occur," he said.

In a suite of "extra precautions" Wannon Water announced it would start manually cleaning tanks using a skimmer to remove surface scum and fats.

Workers had been inspecting Shelly Beach on weekdays but will now also visit on weekends and clean the beach and rock pools of debris following high-flow or unusual events.

The EPA last week announced it was investigating the source of fat balls on Shelly Beach, but has not issued Wannon Water with any notice.

A nurdle spill forced Wannon Water in 2017 to install two temporary screens at the plant. It will now install a third screen to ensure two are in place when one is removed for cleaning.

While Wannon Water had hoped to install a new $1.1 million automatic outlet screen this year, it now plans that upgrade by mid-2020.

"As the screen is being custom-designed and manufactured in the United States, it will not be ready until May 2020. We will then arrange to have it air-freighted to Australia so it can be retro-fitted at the plant," Mr Jeffers said.

Good Nurdle Hunting volunteer Colleen Hughson said the Wannon Water action was long overdue.

"We are very pleased that finally they will take responsibility," she said.

She said volunteers had cleaned waste material, including fat ball pieces, cotton bud sticks and nurdles three to four times a week from the beach for the past year.

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