Urgent workshop for worried councillors
Tuesday, 29 April, 2008
By Marianne Gillingham

Gisborne District councillors are having an urgent workshop this week in the wake of the $95 million bombshell dropped on them last Thursday for the cost of cleaning up the city's sewage discharge.

Mayor Meng Foon said staff had gone back to the drawing board to look at funding options.

The district was struggling to deal with the $26 million initially envisaged. The $39 million (excluding GST) recently quoted was frightening, and the $95 million most recently quoted was altogether untenable.

The council was now considering having only a basic operating plant as the first stage of the consent.

Whether this would meet the resource consent requirement was a matter that would be considered at the workshop, being held by councillors and executives on Wednesday.

They would explore the possibility of going to the Government for help with what has essentially been imposed on them by legislative requirements.

"This matter is urgent for councillors," said Mr Foon.

"We are not sitting on our bums -- we are working hard to make this work but we need to have this affordable for our community."

After learning of the cost blowout at their meeting last week, some councillors were suggesting going back to the Environment Court to seek another time extension for the outfall discharge.

But this is unlikely to be granted, with the council first told in 1993 that the discharge would need to meet standards set out by the Resource Management Act by 2000.

The Act regards the discharge of human waste into natural waterways as a non-complying activity.

In 1999, the council made another application to continue the discharge for a further seven years but was given only four.

Hearings commissioners at that time noted that evidence was "somewhat light" that the council was doing much to consider any alternatives to the outfall.

Instead of working towards meeting the standard for the effluent, the council opted to seek a lowering of the classification of the water around it, in a move rejected by a panel of independent hearings commissioners and later the Environment Court.

"Duckbills" were put over outfall pipe outlets in an attempt to diffuse the waste.

The council also spent $230,000 in 2004 to clean the outfall in an attempt to increase its capacity.

The matter again ended up with the Environment Court, which castigated the council for failing to address the issues as required between 1993 and 1999, and for ignoring the concerns of tangata whenua.

The council had sought a 35-year extension to be allowed to continue the status quo but was granted only two years, which expired at the end of 2005.

A hearing at that time was adjourned when the council agreed to negotiate with tangata whenua objectors.

In December 2006 there was a breakthrough when the adjournment group settled on a system that met the needs of all parties.

The biological trickling filter plant system overcame Maori sensitivities over discharging untreated human waste into the ocean because the system mimicked natural processes of total decomposition on land.

The human waste is "eaten up by bugs", leaving a harmless biomass.

At that stage, the council believed a low-rate biological trickling filter system would cost about the same as the activated sludge treatment system it had been looking at for 10 years. The running costs would be significantly less.

This followed nearly 15 years of acrimonious debate and several Environment Court hearings.

The project was ratified in September 2007 by Conservation Minister Chris Carter, who gave the council consent to continue using the outfall pipe for another 35 years, with a biological trickling filter plant up and running by 2010 and additional treatment methods by 2012.

The council must also investigate alternative use and disposal of wastewater so that methods other than marine discharge can be explored and evaluated.

A wastewater management committee and independent review panel must also be established. The council is in the process of finalising the establishment of the wastewater management committee.

The decision was hailed by Mayor Meng Foon, who believed the project was going to be about $5 million cheaper in capital cost than the previous treatment plant promoted -- about $25 million opposed to $30 million.

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