Latest issue

by Queenstown Lakes Mayor Glyn Lewers

There’s been huge interest – and a fair amount of angst – among the community and media recently about Council’s Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP).

I totally acknowledge and understand why any change in how we dispose of wastewater has generated so much attention. It has also generated a fair amount of disinformation which has caused extra, unnecessary angst.

It’s been a challenging and highly technical situation that none of us want to be in and I do agree that, early on, information wasn’t as timely as it could have been. To be clear, Council takes our environmental responsibility very seriously – it’s the bedrock of our wellbeing.

The fact is that receiving everything that goes down our toilets, treating it effectively and releasing what’s left into the environment is something all local authorities have to manage.

When it doesn’t meet the required standard the appropriate regulator steps in. In our case that’s Otago Regional Council (ORC) which has issued an enforcement order for QLDC to meet its resource consent conditions. This is what we have taken steps – and made real progress – to achieve.

Shotover is a modern, efficient, well-operating treatment plant as our testing results show. The first samples taken on 31 March, straight after the switch to direct discharge to the river, showed E.coli levels below 10cfu (colony-forming units) per 100ml. This compares to QLDC’s consent limit of less than 260cfu/100ml, which also happens to be the nationally accepted safe level for contact recreation.

We’ve started publishing test results on our website and this will continue. There’s heaps more about how we test along with some comprehensive FAQs also online.

As these explain, recent issues have been with the adjacent disposal field which has never been part of the treatment process. We first flagged these issues with the community in August 2021. Since then, we’ve been trialling and implementing a number of measures to improve its performance, none of which have worked satisfactorily.

One of the key issues has been increased ponding water (due to the disposal field draining to groundwater slower than it was being topped up) attracting an increasing number of waterfowl. In turn, this posed an elevated risk to aircraft operations.

Hence Council’s use of emergency works provisions under the Resource Management Act and our application for a retrospective resource consent from ORC. This has not been an easy decision, but it is a responsible course of action for Council to take on behalf of all residents, ratepayers and stakeholders including the airport.

I encourage everyone to get a true picture about the past, present and future of Shotover WWTP by visiting our website at www.qldc.govt.nz/shotoverFAQs