Report warns of more budget blowouts for sewerage scheme
Stopping sewage contamination at two of Taranaki’s most beloved holiday spots could take more than a decade and cost ratepayers $180,000 for each property at the two coastal settlements. The “deep-dive” report into the Urenui and Onaero wastewater project estimates fixing the long-running issue of raw sewage leaking into rivers could cost $41 million, or about $180,000 for each of the 228 homes in the two villages. The report, which will go before the New Plymouth District Council’s strategic projects committee on Wednesday, also revealed the project has already cost ratepayers close to $8m, mostly through the purchase of two large blocks of land. The report also highlights further budget blowouts for the project, which was initially forecast to cost $4 min 2004. “Further assessment of options is required prior to preparing applications for resource consents and site designations which are significant unknowns, so budget is subject to future change.” As well as rising costs, the report also said it could be up to 13 years before the project was even completed given council still needed to work through consenting, detailed design, and construction, as well as the commissioning and connection of each of the 228 homes in the villages. In the meantime, holidaymakers and homeowners faced the prospect of not being able to swim in the rivers surrounding the popular camping spots where warning signs have been in place for years given the dangerously high levels of human faecal contamination. Should the project continue and conform to the estimated timeline, it would have taken 29 years from when it was first proposed in 2004. The project, which would involve wastewater collected from individual properties and piped to a treatment plant where it would be treated before being discharged through irrigation, had always been regarded as “high priority”. But it had continually been kicked down the road and out of budgets. In 2009 the project was pushed out three years by council as concept design work was undertaken, with the budget estimated to be $14m. However, by 2012 it was taken out of the council’s Long-Term Plan due to cost increases. It took a further nine years before it was back on the council table due to “negative environmental impacts” which the “community identified as a high priority”. The timing of the project coincided with the council undertaking to spend close to a quarter of a billion dollars on fixing the district’s ageing water infrastructure. Despite it being defined as a “high priority”, the project had caused division with residents in the area who objected to the proposed site of the wastewater plant on Waiau Rd just south of Onaero. Waitara Community Board member Joe Rauner addressed the council in 2022 as a representative of the Waiau Neighbour Network. He presented a petition from 73 residents and vowed they would put their hands in their pockets and take legal action throughout the consenting process if the council persisted with its plan. “The only winners in this will be the lawyers,” he said. Rauner believed the community would be “destroyed” if the plant was allowed to be built on the pristine land. It would attract pests and vermin while creating airborne pollution, he said. Public consultation on the purchase of the land had been really poor, he said, with the public knowing about it before landowners in the area. Just months prior to Rauner’s address, council had trumpeted the purchase of the 41-hectare property for $3.3m. “It is rare to have something of this size available in the right location so we acted quickly,” the council’s three waters manager Mark Hall said in 2022. “The $31m Urenui/Onaero wastewater project is in the budget and it’s pleasing that after much hard work, we can begin this important piece of mahi to get rid of pollution in this important awa, a couple of years earlier than scheduled.” However, in the report before the council’s strategic projects committee next week it was revealed an additional property on Main North Rd had also been purchased for $5.5m. Unlike in 2022, there was no accompanying press release, although the land’s purchase did appear on the council’s website outlining the progress of the project. “NPDC purchased 84ha site on Main North Road Onaero, as the favoured site for the project,” it said. “This property was purchased because it is larger and closer to the Urenui and Onaero townships than the Waiau Road property (previously purchased), which will simplify and reduce the cost of construction and operations. “Working through obtaining resource consents for the site and design. Both properties will be retained until the consenting process is completed.” Just how long that consenting process would take was just one of the risks highlighted in the report to the strategic projects committee. The report said any consent delays would impact time and increase cost, while there was continued “uncertainty” surrounding future costs with concept designs still to be completed and no certainty on consent conditions. Hall did confirm in a statement council intended to sell the Waiau Rd property once consents were confirmed for the Main North Rd site. The report also said “further discussion” was needed in regards to ownership, maintenance, cost sharing, operational costs and connection requirements. Councillors spoken to had privately questioned whether the project would ever go ahead given the likely budget blowouts and the worthiness of the cost per property. No other alternative plan had been made public, while council continued to work with the Taranaki Regional Council, Ngāti Mutunga and Te Whatu Ora to help residents fix and maintain their septic tanks and manage wastewater issues at both the Onaero and Urenui campgrounds. The council’s website said that unfortunately the work was unlikely to resolve the contamination issues plaguing the waterways that ran through the settlements as the resident’s septic tanks were too close together due to property sizes, while the soil was not suitable for septic tanks. Two other significant sewerage projects had been carried out the New Plymouth District in the last 20 years. In 2010 a sewerage scheme connecting the coastal village of Ōakura to New Plymouth’s wastewater treatment plant was completed at a cost of $23.8m, more than three times the initial estimate of $7m. In 2014 Waitara’s sewerage system was also connected to the New Plymouth plant for a cost of $9.8m, $3.1m under budget. However $23m was also spent upgrading the New Plymouth plant to deal with the extra waste. The upgrade was expected to enable the plant to meet the district's wastewater needs until 2040. Capacity and cultural sensitivity issues were understood to be behind the move to process Urenui and Onaero wastewater at its own plant.
“Any consent delays would impact time and increase cost, while there was continued uncertainty around future costs ...”
Report into the UrenuiandOnaero wastewater project.