Gore's council begins looking at how to dispose wastewater to land
Tuesday, 13 July 2021
The Gore District Council has begun investigating how it can dispose of wastewater to land, after the Hokonui Rūnanga said it would not support it continuing to dispose treated wastewater into the Mataura River.
The Rūnanga says it is culturally unacceptable to discharge it straight into the waterway, and discharge to land is the preferred method of wastewater discharge.
The council's 3 Water Manager, Matt Bayliss, told a full council meeting on Tuesday that a technical working party of representatives from the council and the Rūnanga had begun a desktop exercise to look at general areas where the waste could be disposed of.
It would then identify preferred areas and the disposal method.
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Gore district mayor Tracy Hicks said it was a long journey the council was embarking on, and it may not be this council that saw it through.
In response to a question from Councillor Doug Grant, Bayliss said the size of the area needed would depend on the disposal method.
The worst-case scenario could require an area of 600 hectares, which was not particularly practical, he said.
The working party was looking at options of a treatment plant that would treat the wastewater to a high standard before it was disposed to land, and separating animal and human waste, he said.
Bayliss told Councillor Nicky Davis that the Resource Management Act allowed for a continuance of the council's current consents, as long as it was making progress towards applying for new ones.
The council currently holds three resource consents associated with the Gore and Mataura wastewater treatment plants. The Mataura plant consent expired in May 2021, while the Gore consent expires in December 2023.
In November 2020, the council announced plans to build a new multi-million dollar biological nutrient removal treatment plant to treat wastewater before discharging it to the Mataura River.
The plant would be built in three stages, with completion in 2050 and would cost between $46 to $61 million.