Board ‘anger’ at wastewater plan

Featherston residents say there are better and cheaper ways to upgrade the town’s wastewater scheme than the council’s plan, with its price tag estimated to be upwards of $6 million.

South Wairarapa District Council (SWDC) is struggling to get a 35-year consent to discharge treated wastewater to land granted – and the town’s community board thinks it’s going down the wrong track.

Earlier this month, the Greater Wellington Regional Council recommended SWDC’s consent application be declined.

Featherston Community Board member Claire Bleakley said installing a high rate plant would increase the treated wastewater’s purity to a standard where it could be channelled into a nearby stream, instead of using it to irrigate land.

Bleakley said the plan would cost only $3m.

‘‘The anger with this consultation is that they have totally ignored that option. They’ve bought the golf club, which is inappropriate to use for discharge due to half of it having a very high water table.

‘‘This council just refused to consult, refused to acknowledge there was any other option. They’re talking about it being the cheapest option, well, $6.2m later, we’ve had nothing.

‘‘What the community is saying is what we need is a high rate [membrane] plant which would take the water from the secondary pond and purify it further as well as clean it so that when it goes through the UV plant it will kill all the E.coli,’’ Bleakley said.

SWDC infrastructure and services manager Mark Allingham said it was aware of this type of treatment, but that kind of system had higher running costs than irrigation.

‘‘We originally looked at the membrane plant when we couldn’t get any land. When the Hodder Farm became available, we moved from a membrane plant to irrigation to land.’’

Allingham admitted getting a consent had been ‘‘a long, difficult process with Greater Wellington’’.

A hearing with a panel of commissioners will be held in early May to decide if the council’s consent application can go ahead.