Hobart residents are being urged to avoid swimming in parts of the river Derwent after the failure of a sewerage treatment plant. Tasmania's environment protection authority says the plant failure was caused by industrial waste from the Cadbury chocolate factory.
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00:00It's a beautiful summer's day here in Hobart, perfect for a swim, but residents are being
00:07advised not to get into the water of some beaches, like this one behind me.
00:12Now leakage from the Cadbury factory upstream has knocked out a local sewerage plant.
00:18That has meant that untreated sewerage has leaked into the River Derwent.
00:22Now TAS Water says they've been working with the factory for a few weeks to resolve this
00:27issue.
00:28The do not swim advice applies to the River Derwent between Austen's Ferry and Old Beach
00:33in the north and Sandy Bay across to Howrah in the south.
00:37So I was all ready, I had my swimmers, about to put my togs on and I thought yep, I'm going
00:41to go in.
00:42No I'm not too stressed to be honest, the water looks still pretty good so yeah I think
00:44it'll be alright.
00:45No, I had no idea, yeah I went for a swim just now, yeah.
00:51The potential risk to swimmers includes vomiting and diarrhoea and also infections to the ears,
00:57mouth and eyes and the public health says that they'll continue to update the public
01:02about when they can return to swim but the environmental protection body says it could
01:06take days or weeks.