When the sewage hits the fan

It started with a late Friday afternoon appointment, followed by a call from the Environmental Protection Agency on Saturday.

The company in question was a land developer and property owner that also provided essential services to a residential and commercial developments up in Far North Queensland – with complex ties to Queensland’s infamous “white-shoe brigade” and its own privately operated sewage treatment plant.

The development had just survived Cyclone Yasi, a category 5 cyclone that deposited marina boats and yachts into second storey-units at Port Hinchinbrook.

To make matters worse, the community was bitterly divided, split down the middle between pro-developer and anti-developer factions. As disgruntled residents stopped paying levies, the funds to run the local infrastructure dried up.

Then came the weekend plot twist.

By Saturday, environmental authorities issued a stark warning: the sewerage system was on the verge of overflowing, threatening nearby Great Barrier Reef ecosystems – and potentially making the appointees personally liable for any environmental damage.

A colleague was on a plane by Sunday morning to head off an environmental catastrophe and organise emergency pumping to remove untreated effluent that had overflowed following a breakdown in the pumping system.

It turned out the entire development’s sewerage system flowed to one final well before being pumped to the treatment plant. That well simply wasn’t deep enough to provide sufficient capacity for even a minor breakdown or failure elsewhere in the system.

But raw sewage turned out to be only one of the hazards on site.

The sewerage treatment plant operator – a firmly in the pro-developer camp – lived on-site and had developed a curious habit: throwing live chooks, attached to rope, to the crocodiles in the adjacent creek.

Local folklore claimed he was training them to target the dogs of anti-developer residents – perhaps even the residents themselves. Whether the croc-training story was true remains a mystery, but the chooks – and the crocs – were very real.

Insolvency work is rarely predictable. But going from a Friday sign-off to an environmental emergency – while keeping an eye out for local croc feeders – by Sunday?

That’s definitely one for the books.

Insolvently Yours,
The Liquidator Diaries