Council pledges to end spills

The council has vowed to end accidental sewage spills into the harbour.

Whangarei District Council chief executive Mark Simpson says he and engineering staff are putting the acid on contractors to make manmade spills a thing of the past.

"We are committed to improving water quality in our harbour. We all know it is a jewel to be looked after. We’ve had enough of the damage to the harbour and to Whangarei’s reputation," he says.

"We’re telling everybody involved with the maintenance of our sewerage system: ‘The message is simple. That’s it, no more spills’."

One of the worst man-made spills occurred last October when 6000 cubic metres of wastewater was pumped into the harbour when a contractor came across an unexpected problem when replacing a pipe.

A supposedly flexible joint was found to be welded and fabricating a new joint on site took some hours.

While the council previously imposed strict standards on contractors, it will now raise the bar to zero tolerance of contractor error.

Mr Simpson say contractors working on the system will have to work on a "no surprises" regime.

"There is going to be a rigorous series of checks before any part of the network is dismantled or cut open.

"We are going to insist on a dummy run for major work that entails removing critical parts of the sewerage system.

"Before a welding torch is turned on, or any valve dismantled, we are going to be assured by the contractors they know exactly what they are going to find," he says.

Mr Simpson says there will be penalties severe enough to deter contractors from taking "even the slightest risk" with the harbour.

About two years ago the Northland Regional Council successfully prosecuted the district council for a sewage spill into the harbour.

The district council was required to pay $10,000 toward harbour restoration projects like re-seeding cockle beds.

Mr Simpson says eliminating human error will go part of the way to lessening harbour pollution, and the council is continuing engineering modelling to reduce wet weather overflows.

It has applied for resource consent from the regional council to continue wet weather overflows of up to 24 million litres of sewage a day.

The application has caused a public outcry with more than 600 submissions and a 5500-signature petition calling for the overflows to be stopped.

Mr Simpson says council engineers are coming up with options to curb storm overflows and these will go out for public consultation.

"The council will be told by the ratepayers which direction to take on that. Whangarei’s citizens will decide what level of control we have over wet weather overflows.

"It’s their money and it’s up to them to choose how much to spend on wastewater," Mr Simpson says.

- © Fairfax NZ News