Introduction
Over the last five years the Council have been involved in a lengthy process to confirm both the feasibility and desirability of providing a community wastewater scheme to serve the communities of Mahia Beach, Opoutama, Oraka and Mahanga. Through this process the Council has sought to scope the benefits and costs for a community wastewater scheme, and in particular obtain a commitment from government that a subsidy will be made available for the scheme.
The point has now been reached where a decision must be made about whether to continue with the project, and about what form the community wastewater scheme should take. A working proposal for the scheme has been developed as part of the subsidy application process, which included consultation with key stakeholders and the wider community on the various options for the treatment and disposal of wastewater at Mahia.
This project update sheet has been prepared to provide a background on what has happened to date, and to provide summary information about the working proposal so that key stakeholders and the wider community can provide their feedback to the Council.
Why Is A Community Wastewater Scheme Needed?
Monitoring of the environment and investigations conducted in the Mahia Beach settlement, confirm that many of the existing on-site wastewater systems are failing and contributing to poor environmental and public health outcomes for both residents and visitors. A community wastewater scheme can address these issues by:
- stopping the current pollution of groundwater, streams and beaches around the target communities
- preventing illness among local residents and visitors associated with swimming and harvesting kaimoana
- providing an opportunity to treat wastewater to a high standard to ensure that wastewater has no more than minimal future
impacts on the environment.
The Council recognised early on that a new community wastewater scheme would be expensive to construct, and would represent a significant cost burden for the existing community. The Council also recognised that the current and unlikely to be repeated opportunity of a government subsidy for the scheme provides a chance for the community to address the issue of affordability.
Documents
The following documents are available for download. You will need to install the Adobe Reader program on your computer in order to read it. If you do not already have the Adobe Reader installed you can download it free from the Adobe website.
For further information please do not hesitate to contact: Neil Cook at the Wairoa District Council, Ph: (06) 838 7309.
