Lincoln Street Ventilation Stack

Sir Russel Dumas, from starting as the Resident Engineer Churchman’s Brook Dam in 1925, to Chief Engineer of the Water Supply Department from 1934 to 1941; and finally as Director of Works and Buildings in the Public Works Department from 1941 to 1953, is a figure of towering importance in the history of the Water Corporation of Western Australia

Second only to C.Y. O’Connor in reputation and influence, “RJ” was responsible for virtually all the dams in the South West of the Western Australia, most of the country water supply schemes and much of the infrastructure and the sewerage reticulation of virtually all of prewar Perth. His career did however include a few hiccups, the most visible being the Lincoln Street Ventilation Stack on the corner of Smith and Lincoln Sts in the inner-city suburb of Highgate, colloquially know by Corporation old timers as “Dumas’ Folly”

Perth’s initial Wastewater Treatment Plant consisted of a 7ML septic tank at Claisebrook (still in service in the role of emergency overflow storage) discharging via an under-river syphon to filter beds on Burswood (just to the south of the current Perth Stadium).

Almost as soon as the filter beds were commissioned in 1912 there were smell complaints. Despite this, the demand from the rapidly growing city was such that the works were steadily expanded to ten filter beds by the 1920s. The smell increased accordingly, with the hot dry summer of 1922 not only exacerbating this problem but also nutrients leaching from the filter beds causing massive algae blooms which extended as far as Freshwater Bay – 15km downstream.

The only solution was to treat the sewerage elsewhere and dispose the effluent out to sea. A new Sewerage Treatment Plant and ocean outfall was constructed at West Subiaco in 1924 but it wasn’t until 1936 with the completion of a sufficient length of the Perth Main Sewer that the Burswood filter beds were finally able to be taken off-line.

The only problem was that the tank at Claisebrook was lower than new Main Sewer. A pump station was therefore constructed at Claisebrook to pump the sewage to the “top end” of the Perth Main Sewer in Highgate.

Unfortunately, pumped sewage when discharged into a gravity sewer releases high levels Hydrogen Sulphide gas, which apart from the smell (a rotten egg smell), the Sulphide in the gas combines with moisture to form Sulpheric Acid which aggressively attacks concrete, rapidly turning it into a pug. To prevent such attacks on the new sewer, it was decided to extract the Hydrogen Sulphide gas from the discharge point before it increased gas concentrations in the gravity sewer, hence the Vent Tower.

In 1941 this was completed - 38m high, Art Noveau in style; and with two separate 5 hp extractor fans. It only ran for a short period, some say less than six weeks. Now there are two accounts as to its fate. One story is that the Hydrogen Sulphide concentrations corroded the extractor fans so quickly that it was uneconomic to continue to operate the tower. The other story was that the Hydrogen Sulphide, being heavier than air, after exiting the top of the tower, settled down in a foul-smelling cloud over a number of nearby businesses and private residences, one of which was supposedly owned by the Mayor of Perth. It has never run since.

The Perth Main Sewer In the meanwhile the Perth Main Sewer continued to operate in a high Hydrogen Sulphide environment with a history of minor collapses and ongoing maintenance. It is only in recent years that the 1930s sewer pipe has been replaced (with greater capacity) by a fully plastic lined (and hence impervious to Hydrogen Sulphide attack) concrete sewer pipeline.