More woes for treatment plants
A district council fined for letting raw human sewage go into a river is in trouble again for allowing dissolved aluminium into a stream.
But the council’s chief executive says the problems are sorted.
The Rangitı¯kei District Council was issued two abatement notices and one infringement notice in October for failing to comply with consent conditions for the Marton sewage treatment plant and Hunterville and Bulls wastewater treatment plants.
Abatement and infringement notices are issued when people, companies or councils breach the Resource Management Act, but are not as serious as being taken to court.
The district council is familiar with being taken to court for beaching the act, being fined $60,000 in July for discharging sewage into the Hautapu River at Taihape last year.
Documents provided to Stuff by the regulator, Horizons Regional Council, show the district council was given an infringement notice after allowing dissolved aluminium to flow from the Hunterville plant into the Porewa Stream.
The Bulls and Marton plants are operating with consents that expired in 2006 and last year, respectively.
The plants can continue operating legally as long as applications have been made to get new consents within six months of the old consents expiring.
The district council has permission to discharge water from the Bulls plant’s oxidation ponds into the Rangitı¯kei River.
However, it failed to do correct monitoring of the water discharge.
The district council’s failure to monitor correctly meant Horizons could not be sure exactly how the Rangitı¯kei River changed due to the discharges.
The problems were similar at the Marton plant, with the district council failing to do monitoring. It had also breached its conditions through what it discharged into the Tutaenui Stream.
Horizons found the discharge made the stream’s water unsuitable for stock drinking, had a significant effect on aquatic life and severely impacted water clarity.
The district council did not provide someone for an interview, but in a written response credited to chief executive Peter Beggs said moves were made to remedy the situation.
A variation to the Hunterville plant’s discharge rates had been sought.