Sludge Watch ==> New Zealand Maori - $6M opposition to sewage contamination of Cook Strait

[Maureen Reilly]

$6m to clean up Moa Point
By MATT CALMAN - The Dominion Post | Monday, 11 June 2007

Wellington City Council may have to pay $6 million to clean up overflows 
pumped into the sea from the Moa Point sewage treatment plant to appease 
local iwi, who say the practice is highly offensive.


At a strategy and policy meeting last week, councillors looked at how to 
deal with the problem which happened when heavy rain caused stormwater to 
rush into the plant faster than it could treat it.

The overflow usually happened about three times a year, but there were six 
incidents last year. The council predicted the overflows could increase to 
about nine a year.

Overflows are pumped into Cook Strait to relieve the pressure at the plant - 
a method Ngati Toa finds "culturally abhorrent".

A Ngati Toa report said pumping human sewage into Cook Strait "defiled the 
mauri (life force) and mana of the sea", and prevented fishing and gathering 
of seafood.

Last year, 46,000 cubic metres of overflow was pumped out to sea from Moa 
Pt. Wellington City Council is applying for new resource consents to allow 
it to continue to operate the plant for the next 35 years.

As part of its consent application, it is proposing to do several things to 
make the situation more acceptable to Maori. Improvements to the plant, 
including variable-speed pumps, would help control flows into the station.

A council report said 17 of the last 22 overflows would have been avoided if 
the pumps had been fitted.

A pilot plant - costing $200,000 - would test whether an ultraviolet 
treatment could work to clean up the overflows. If the UV treatment was 
successful, it would be adopted at the Moa Point plant, costing $6 million 
to set up.

Another option was storing the overflows on land to be treated and 
discharged at a later date.

The storage plan would require the council to buy more land near the airport 
and would cost nearly twice as much as the UV option.

Deputy Mayor Alick Shaw said ignoring Maori views about the issue would be a 
huge mistake. "If we start a fight with Maori on this matter it would affect 
us seriously."

The council manager of infrastructure planning, Maria Archer, said 
eliminating overflows was not a viable option, mainly because of the cost 
involved.

"We have no option but to put it to sea and they (Maori) ... aren't 
necessarily comfortable about it but they do actually acknowledge that.

"They realise we're trying to make it better than it is."

At the next full council meeting, on June 27, the council will vote to send 
the resource consent application to Greater Wellington regional council.

The Moa Point plant cost $149 million to build. It was completed in 1998 
after 20 years of heated public debate. Its location was controversial 
because of its closeness to residents' homes and the airport.

In 1997, Maori fought the plant's intention to compost human sewage to sell 
as fertiliser. They withdrew their complaint to the environment court in 
1998.