New Clifton Waste Treatment Plant Process To Start Next Year

Staff will be assigned to the new Clifton waste treatment plant upgrade five years before its discharge consent expires, to prepare for a “complicated” process.

Mayor Nobby Clark asked ICC general manager of infrastructure Erin Moogan this week why there was such a long lead in time, given they didn’t know what the Government would replace both Three Waters and the Resource Management Act (RMA) with.

Erin told council’s Infrastructure meeting on Tuesday the expectation was that they would start on that process next year because the options would be significant, “and to be honest there will be new technology that we’re not familiar with.”

She also knew of other councils who still hadn’t received consent, 10 years after starting the process.

“If we did take 10 years at least we would be heading in the right direction,” Mayor Clark said.

“We’re not being held up by any regulators saying ‘we’re not complying,’” he said.

The Clifton Waste Treatment Plant receives sewage from about 50,000 people (with industrial effluent equivalent to a population of about 10,000). The average daily flow from the plant is 25,000 cubic metres, with a maximum permitted flow of 90,000 cubic metres.