Gladding has no regrets over going public

Whistleblowing councillor Niki Gladding is set to face the council firing squad today.

Gladding revealed Queenstown Lakes District Council executive team's plans invoke emergency powers to discharge more than 12,000 cubic metres of treated sewage into the Shotover River per day, for five years.

The Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant's disposal field has been plagued by problems and the council maintains it is now causing a risk of bird strike for aircraft using Queenstown Airport.

Councillors had been briefed by council staffers on the move, but were not given any opportunity to debate or approve the plan.

Gladding went public, six days before QLDC intended to announce the plan, and the news was met with outrage by large sections of the Queenstown community and elsewhere.

Around 100 people gathered to protest a media briefing at the plant on Wednesday last week, including Gladding, holding up banners reading 'Something stinks at QLDC', 'Blue not poo' and 'No shit in the Shotty'.

Now Queenstown Lakes Mayor Glyn Lewers has called an extraordinary meeting for1pm today, which could see Gladding stripped of her committee roles - she's deputy chair of the Infrastructure Committee and a member of the Audit, Finance & Risk Committee.

She's also in trouble over her appearance on a podcast. The meeting report says she's in clear breach of the Code of Conduct but recommends discharging her of her committee roles without a formal investigation, to save costs.

"QLDC is behaving as it often does," Gladding says. "They've presented councillors with a report that lacks objectivity, and that recommends councillors bypass policy and procedure because it gets them to their objective quickly, at low cost, and without having to consider other people's ideas and opinions."

"They've just done exactly the same thing in response to the ORC's enforcement action; the discharge to water under emergency powers is fast, cheap and removes the requirement to consult. I'm ok with going through another code of conduct process but the staff's recommendation is vindictive and possibly unlawful."

 

Over the last few days, contactors have been working on a channel at the wastewater plant and the direct discharge of treated wastewater into the Shotover River began on Monday morning, following the approval to exercise emergency powers.

"The use of emergency powers has been confirmed following notification by QAC of increased waterfowl activity around the ponded field which poses an elevated risk to aircraft operations in the area (including being close to/under the main flight path)," the statement reads.

A retrospective resource consent for the disposal method will be sought from Otago Regional Council within 20 days.

Aotearoa Water Action said last week it might seek a court injunction preventing the discharge but as the Lakes Weekly Bulletin went to press, that had not happened.

The treated wastewater discharge will amount to around 2% of the flow of the Shotover River at low flow and 0.02% of the Kawarau River. The Shotover flows into the Kawarau about 200 metres down from the plant.

Council infrastructure operations manager Simon Mason, who fronted the media last week, said he'd happily let his children swim in the river. Property and infrastructure general manager Tony Avery, alongside him, said the discharge would have no impact on communities downstream, like Cromwell, and would be "undetectable" in the Kawarau River. Still, QLDC will carry out more environmental monitoring.

• The meeting will be streamed live on the council's YouTube page.