The public now has an opportunity to comment on proposed plans by the Central Hawke’s Bay District Council (CHBDC) for a new wastewater treatment scheme.
CHBDC has recently lodged resource consent applications for construction of the new scheme which, if consents are granted, will be built over the next two and a half years.
Under the proposed scheme, wastewater from Waipawa and Waipukurau townships will be irrigated onto forest land which has specifically been purchased by Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for this purpose. When irrigation to land is not possible, particularly during winter when the ground is saturated, the effluent will be held in storage ponds. The effluent can later be discharged to the Tukituki and Waipawa Rivers at times when the rivers are running at high flow, or when storage ponds have reached capacity.
The new system will mean no more discharges to the rivers during sensitive summer low-flow periods. It should alleviate the long-running problem of enhanced algal growth that has been attributed to the Waipawa and Waipukurau wastewater discharges.
If granted, the resource consents that CHBDC has applied for would replace consents issued in 2008 for an advanced chemical treatment plant. The plant was to receive wastewater from both Waipawa and Waipukurau and discharge highly-treated wastewater to the river 100% of the time. The new scheme would divert a large portion of that wastewater onto land.
CHB District Council has been working with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council for some time to come up with an effective and affordable alternative for treating wastewater from the two urban areas.
HBRC received the resource consent applications on 14 November 2011 and has been working to ensure it has all the required information and is now ready to publicly notify them.
The public has 20 working days to make a submission to HBRC on the applications. The submission period will close at 5 pm on Wednesday 29 February 2012.
CHB District Council continues to consult with a range of interested parties about the project including Hawke’s Bay Fish and Game, Department of Conservation, Hawke’s Bay Environmental Water Group, Iwi and Public Health Unit of the District Health Board. |