Apathy marked council response to Bromley stench

Friday, 13 October 2023

Linwood resident Stephen McPaike says the council has a long way to go to build bridges with the eastern suburbs following its response to the Bromley wastewater treatment plant stench.

A damning report into how Christchurch City Council handled the stench coming from the burnt out Bromley wastewater treatment plant may be enough to soothe eastern tempers.

But not yet.

“It will take a lot of work to repair the relationship with the eastern suburbs,” Linwood resident Stephen McPaike said.

“I don’t trust them at this stage, but don’t not trust them, if you know what I mean. We always felt that the council could have done more.”

The report by Wellington consultants Tregaskis Brown Ltd found the council was “too slow to recognise” the stench - or pong - was a significant community issue.

The fire caused significant damage to the wastewater ponds, creating a stench that affected nearby communities for months on end.

The problem began on November 1, 2021, when a major fire destroyed the trickling filters at the wastewater treatment plant, taking out 60% of its treatment capacity.

Complaints about odour never stopped from the day of the fire, the report found. It was leaked to The Press this week and released to the public on Friday.

For months, residents of eastern suburbs such as Bromley, Burwood, Linwood and New Brighton complained of nausea, vomiting, coughing, sore and watering eyes, headaches and migraines, and sleeplessness.

“It was bad enough for people who experienced it occasionally, but this community experienced it for months on end,” the report said. “They were living in it, working in it, exercising or playing sport in it, and trying to sleep in it. Their children were going to school in it.”

Dramatic drone footage in the days after the fire showed the extent of the damage to the Bromley wastewater treatment plant.

It was “appalling”.

The council “mucked up”, said one eastern resident who didn’t want to be named. “It’s fantastic that’s been acknowledged.”

Another resident who was briefed on the report behind closed doors this week was asked by the council not to discuss its contents with the media.

Some residents who attended the meeting were aggrieved that the mayor, the council chief executive and the Tregaskis Brown authors didn’t attend, McPaike said.

Councillor Yani Johanson, left, says he couldn’t get council staff to listen, while councillor Celeste Donovan, right, says residents faced apathy and resistance from council.

Coastal ward councillor Celeste Donovan attended by Zoom from another country.

In the six months after the fire, not enough attention was paid to the smell and how it was affecting residents. “Months were lost because the council systems let them down,” the report found.

Bromley resident Sandra Bennet says a lot more could have been done for people affected by the ongoing stench from the fire-damaged Christchurch wastewater plant.

“The potential scale and impact of the odours was understated and too much confidence was placed in the odour mitigation measures. It was not made clear just how bad those odours could be.”

The stench ramping up markedly in March 2022 and the council belatedly responded in late April, the report found. It took until September that year for the odours to stop, according to Tregaskis Brown. Residents dispute this, saying they still now occasionally get smelly days.

East Christchurch residents have complained for years about odours coming from the organics processing plant, less than a kilometre away from the wastewater treatment plant, both in Bromley.

After the fire, residents learned to distinguish which foul odour was coming from which facility, McPaike said.

“We recognise that re-building trust with the eastern communities will take time, and will require a concerted effort and resources from the council,” acting council chief executive Mary Richardson said on Friday.

McPaike says residents’ noses became attuned to the differences in smell between the damaged wastewater plant and the nearby organics processing site.

After the earthquakes, floods, fires and mosque shootings, Christchurch should have been the best placed city in the country to respond to the wastewater plant fire, Linwood councillor Yani Johanson told The Press.

His ward was most affected by the stench and he said he repeatedly conveyed residents’ complaints to the chief executive’s office.

The new report did not explain why those complaints were not acted upon, he said.

“Positive action was initiated as a result of relentless advocacy by local residents … in the face of apathy and resistance from council,” said Donovan.

Even now, the wasterwater treatment plant is not robust. Staff have installed a temporary, five-year solution with no redundancy that works at its operational limit, the new report found.

On October 2, the arms of a clarifier were out of action for some hours. The arms play a vital part in the treatment process. Staff got them moving again but they stopped in the same place a few hours later.

It’s possible high winds blew debris into the tank. Divers may have to investigate the sludge in the tank.

“The point was made several times … that if this odour had been affecting any other area of Christchurch it wouldn’t have taken so long for the council to react.”

The technical response to the fire was said to be excellent. The report was commissioned to examine the poor community response to prevent future mistakes.