Cocoroc is a rural locality in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, south-west of Melbourne's Central Dusiness District, located within the

City of Wyndham The City of Wyndham is a local government area in Victoria, Australia in the outer south-western suburbs of Melbourne, within the Melbourne Metropolitan Area, between Melbourne and the regional city of Geelong. It has an area of . The city had a ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

. Cocoroc recorded no population at the .

History

In 1892 the

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) was a public utility board in Melbourne, Australia, set up in 1891 to provide water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment functions for the city. In 1992, the MMBW was merged with a number of s ...

established the Metropolitan Sewage Farm on the western bank of the

Werribee River The Werribee River is a perennial river of the Port Phillip catchment that is located on the Werribee Plain, expansive lowland plain southwest of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The headwaters of a tributary, the Lerderderg ...

, to treat the

effluent Effluent is wastewater from sewers or industrial outfalls that flows directly into surface waters either untreated or after being treated at a facility. The term has slightly different meanings in certain contexts, and may contain various pollut ...

from Melbourne's new sewerage system. This area was isolated and too far from Melbourne, so a village was built to house the workers, which became the town of Cocoroc. In 1910 Cocoroc had a population of 300. It developed further in the 1920s, with the area including a public hall and three primary schools, the first one having been opened in 1894. As of 2018, the town has almost disappeared, with the name Cocoroc encompassing the area of what is now called the

Western Treatment Plant The Western Treatment Plant (formerly the Metropolitan Sewage Farm or, more commonly, the Werribee Sewage Farm) is a sewage treatment plant in Cocoroc, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's central business district, on the coast of Port P ...

, which covers around 10,500 hectares and treats about 60% of Melbourne's sewage. In 2015, there was a temporary public art installation held at various locations across the Western Treatment Plant, this included installations held at some of the remaining structures from the former town of Cocoroc such as the old football oval and swimming pools. The installation was called ''Treatment'' featuring on-location works by six artists (Catherine Bell, Bindi Cole, Shane McGrath, Techa Noble, Megan Evans and Spiros Panigarakis), with free bus tours linking the artworks on a 90-minute journey through varied experiences including live performances, exhibitions, sensory and multimedia experiences.

References

External links

Australian Places - Metropolitan FarmMelbourne Water - Cocoroc (History of Western Treatment Plant)
Towns in Victoria (Australia) Suburbs of the City of Wyndham {{Melbourne-geo-stub