Warwick Smith/Stuff
Bulls and Marton need new wastewater plans. (File Photo)
The Bulls wastewater treatment plant has been operating without consent since 2006, and Horizons Regional Council is threatening enforcement action if there are further delays in planning improvements.
As well, the Marton plant’s consent ran out in 2019, with the Rangitīkei District Council attracting a formal warning, infringement and abatement notices regarding both of them.
The district council’s response, outlined by group manager for capital programmes Adina Foley and Good Earth Matters consultant Annette Sweeney includes a plan to amalgamate management and treatment of wastewater from both communities in Bulls, with a discharge to land, not water.
A 14-kilometre pipeline to connect Marton to Bulls was 90% finished, but the council still had to get consents to use it.
It was paid for with a $3.88m grant from the Department of Internal Affairs as part of the three waters stimulus funding.
The centralisation project was expected to cost about $25 million.
Sweeney said the first priority was to get wastewater from Marton out of the Tutaenui Stream.
The district council was working to have a plan ready for public consultation in early 2025, with a target of lodging consent applications by mid-2026.
It would take at least a year, even if contractors were well-prepared for conditions that might be attached to consents, for the civil works to be carried out.
Foley said she was aware there had been little progress on the plans for a long time, which she put down to staff turnover.
“There is no good apology. It should not be like this.”
Foley said district councillors were also unhappy about past delays with the project, and were committed to getting better outcomes for their communities.
Foley took up her role late last year, had refreshed the project, and said the team working on preparation of new resource consent applications was determined to meet deadlines.
Sweeney agreed the council was on its “last chance” to get things done on time.
But she said they had to balance urgency with the need to get things right, with a lot of technical detail yet to be worked through.
Not least was the issue of identifying and getting access to land suitable to take the discharge.
Horizons regulatory manager Greg Bevin said any further delays with the consenting strategy would be highly undesirable and could result in Horizons considering additional enforcement action.
Regional council chief executive Michael McCartney said the current Rangitīkei team had inherited the problems, and that was history now.
He accepted the district council could have difficulty paying for the solution, especially with the uncertainty about the future of responsibilities for three waters.
But he said if acceptable resource consent applications did not land on time, the council really had to consider enforcement action.
