Councils under fire for sewage spills

A complaint from a member of the public has uncovered widespread failures from councils across Otago to prevent sewage polluting waterways. The Otago Regional Council (ORC) has carried out audits of all wastewater treatment plants operated by territorial local authorities across Otago revealing a raft of significant non-compliance by the Clutha, Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes District Councils. A formal investigation has begun into the Clutha District Council’s waste water treatment plants at Lawrence, Tapanui, Kaka Point, Owaka and Sterling after audits prompted by a complaint from a member of the public in late 2019. Inspections showed all Clutha’s 11 sites are ‘‘poorly maintained’’. Issues range from an absence of reporting to a lack of basic maintenance and operational oversight at the sites resulting in an increase of ‘‘environmental impacts’’, the report to council says. The Central Otago District Council is also criticised in the report. An audit and inspection of its seven treatment plants showed while ‘‘functional’’ there were six significant non-compliances – largely due to a lack of adequate reporting processes. The regional council is currently investigating two recent sewage spills in Central Otago waterways – one in Lake Dunstan on February 26 and another into the Clutha Mataau River on March 1. In the past four years there had been 13 events across Central Otago that resulted in overflows from pump stations entering waterways. Of those, five were due to power outages, one due to an electrical fault within the pump station. The remainder were due to storm events, where the flows exceeded the capacity of the pump station. The council had engaged a consultant to investigate capacity needs at pump stations which will form a priority list for critical infrastructure improvements across the region.