Sewage closes off school playing field for a year
Students have been banned from one of their playing fields for more than a year after it was swamped with treated sewage.
The field at Coastal Taranaki School in Okato, south of New Plymouth, has been closed while the Ministry of Education investigates.
A new sewerage system was installed between 2006 and 2007 at a total cost of around $237,000, with the outlet for the treated waste water coming out under one of the adjacent playing fields.
But in June last year, routine testing found overflow problems that caused the field to be closed as a precaution.
‘‘The treated product has to go somewhere, so that’s what they’re monitoring, to make sure the system is doing what it needs to do,’’ board of trustees chairwoman Deborah Burmeister said.
‘‘They measure the levels for that and that’s why they closed it off.’’
While the issues around the field were looked at, Burmeister said the Ministry of Education (MOE) decided to do a test on the whole system and was looking at upgrading parts of it.
‘‘There’s a number of issues that affect it, like it’s got a clay ground and we’re slightly down a hill, the water runs off,’’ she said.
‘‘We’ve had an exceptionally wet year so there’s things outside our control that we need to take into account to see what the effects are on the system.’’
She said they were working with the MOE as well as the company that designed the system to look at what could be done to improve it.
‘‘While it’s not a faulty system there are some things that are affecting it and we’re looking at upgrading it,’’ she said.
She wasn’t sure when the testing and upgrades would be completed, or whether the field would be reopened.
‘‘We’ve still got plenty of grounds for our kids. We’ve got a sports field and we’ve got other fields and areas for our kids to play at so it’s probably more than any other town school has got.’’