Crapwatch

Independent public-interest research · 2024–25 reporting year

Crapwatch — open wastewater observability for Tasmania

Crapwatch turns public Annual Environmental Reviews into evidence you can inspect: what was reported, what was measured, and—just as importantly—what the documents cannot tell us.

The current evidence

One corpus. Two different views of performance.

The current analysis covers all 77 EPA-regulated Level 2 sewage treatment plants in Tasmania. Bypass reporting describes interruptions to treatment. Treated-effluent statistics describe how sampled discharge performed against applicable limits. Neither is a complete account on its own.

77
Level 2 plants
200
itemised bypass-event records
233
events reported only as aggregate counts at Rosebery and Ti Tree Bend
61
plants reporting zero bypass events
53 of 61
also had at least one applicable treated-effluent statistic below 100%

Keep the resolutions separate. The 200 itemised records and 233 count-only events are not presented as a single 433-event claim. Their reporting detail is materially different.

How to read the evidence

Zero bypasses does not mean clean.

A plant can report no bypass events and still have treated-effluent results below an applicable compliance statistic. A bypass is a treatment-path event; it is not a general score for wastewater performance.

UNKNOWN is not a favourable result. It means the captured public evidence does not establish the answer. Crapwatch keeps that gap visible rather than silently turning missing reporting into zero.

Follow the evidence

Explore without losing the caveats.