Decisions Made On Bluff Wastewater Treatment Project

Bluff’s Wastewater Treatment Plan project has missed out being fast tracked by the Government, but the Infrastructure and Projects committee has made a decision on the preferred scheme.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Technical Working Group’s recommendation of the status quo treatment with a new naturalistic wetland was approved.

But there was still confusion by some councillors who were wanting a greater understanding of the different options, particularly due to the financial gap between those.

Group manager - infrastructure services Erin Moogan who spoke to the meeting, said an alternative option of using the existing system with land contact other than a surface flow wetland was not supported, because it wasn’t practical, given the lack of flat land available in the area.

While surprised that the project hadn’t made the cut for being fast tracked, she confirmed all stakeholders, including iwi were supportive of the treatment plan using a wetland.

Iwi in other parts of the country were more supportive of the land-based options, but it was understood their geographical location impacted those decisions.

The current Bluff Wastewater discharge consent expires on December 2025, and a new consent is programmed for application in April 2025, with lodgement no later than the end of June 2025.

The Bluff Community Board has requested that improvements to the UV treatment be considered as the existing UV equipment is approaching the end of its useful life.

Other requests included appropriate monitoring of the treated discharge into the marine environment to continue with consideration of reinstating shellfish / seafood testing.

The council will now proceed with concept design and consent preparation with final costs and proposed consent conditions provided to the committee prior to consent lodgement.

Council also decided that the matter was significant enough for staff to conduct a public consultation process.

A paper will be brought back to the council for the reason for the cultural preferences of the wetland versus land contact non-wetland option as well.