Sydney plumbers have been put on watch this week after fluorescent dye stained one suburb’s waters bright green.
Around 3 pm on Wednesday afternoon, authorities reported a “large spill of green material” leaking out into Sydney Harbour around some of the state’s priciest properties.
One local told 9News the water resembled “green cordial” and the “radioactive stuff you see in superhero movies”. However, Fire and Rescue NSW found that onlookers weren’t likely to ‘hulk out’ as there was no indication the substance was toxic.
“Our team quickly investigated and confirmed the spill was non-toxic,” Fire and Rescue NSW said on social media.
“There is no vapour or odour coming off it. It is not acidic or alkaline, so there is no corrosiveness in it. We are not seeing any evidence of fish kills or damage to the environment.”
While many compared to St Patrick’s Day pranks seen in the Chicago River, officials said that the Sydney leak likely had less festive origins, with the top suspect being nearby construction sites and careless tradies.
“We can’t say for sure, but that’s what we think it is,” Superintendent Adam Dewberry told 9News. “It’s a common product that does get used to dye water and it’s very effective.”
The dye, called fluorescein, is commonly used by plumbers to find leaks in piping, with the green colour making it easy to trace.
But water expert and professor of environmental engineering at the University of Sydney, Stuart Khan, said that it would take one fat-fingered tradie to leak this much fluorescein into the waterways.
“That’s its normal use. Clearly in this case it’s been misused,” he said.
Normally, a teaspoon of fluorescein would be used, with “even very small amounts [producing] a very visible, intensive colour that can hang around for a long time”.
“Even if somebody was doing a legitimate task … they’ve used way too much of it,” Prof Khan said. “It’s a massive amount. It’s probably a whole bucket full of fluorescein dye.”
Luckily for the plumbers at fault, Dewberry said the thousands of entry points would make it almost hard to locate the source, but an investigation was still underway.
“So it’s unlikely we’ll be able to identify the source, where it did come from, because there’s just so many access points into the storm water … in that area,” he added.
Tradies told to play it safe around dye
This latest spill comes only weeks after tradies were issued a similar warning from Victoria’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) after similar incidents involving fluorescein were “giving investigators a headache”.
EPA south-west Victoria regional manager Carolyn Francis said the leaks were not only distressing for communities who saw natural waterways stained an unnatural colour but also wasted the organisation’s valuable time and resources.
“EPA will investigate any contaminant in a waterway in case it’s a hazardous chemical, but this year we’ve responded to numerous incidents involving fluorescein that took up investigators’ time and could easily have been prevented.“
And tradies found dying community water aren’t getting off scot-free. Landscaping contractor Super Gardens was slapped with a hefty $25,000 fine earlier this year for unknowingly dropping hazardous chemicals into the surrounding stormwater system, turning the nearby Gardiners Creek blue.
In this case, the company claimed they had sprayed marker dye and fungicide onto the grass at their worksite and then washed the containers into a stormwater drain.
Francis said these latest fluorescein incidents were a visual demonstration of how the community’s streets, gutters and drains were pathways to the region’s waterways.
“Anything you wash into a stormwater drain will end up in our creeks, rivers and oceans. EPA will investigate and can issue fines, but prevention is always a better protection for the environment,” she added.
“A little fluorescein goes a long way, so we are calling on plumbers and anyone else working with dye to make sure they follow the manufacturer’s instructions.”
