By Graham Skellern
More than 800 Omokoroa property owners will be spared the normal connection charge to switch from their septic tanks to the new $30-million sewerage system.Residents will be told at a community meeting this evening that Western Bay of Plenty District Council will waive the $130 application fee for
a new wastewater connection.They will still pay for the outflow pipe that will be laid on their properties.The wastewater scheme will be operating by the end of June next year and the property owners will then be given six months to close down their septic tanks and connect to the new system.Council utilities manager Kelvin Hill said: "We want everyone on the peninsula to switch over and make the scheme more affordable."If there are genuine cases of financial hardship then the council has offered to help out. But really everyone has to connect to the scheme."Philip Jones, the council's group manager revenue and finance, said that if anyone was holding out, the council had the power to force the issue under the Local Government Act, but "we won't be unreasonable."The property owners will be asked to pump out their septic tanks, collapse them and have them filled in - a process that could cost more than $400.Mr Hill said the council was looking at organising voluntary labour and providing materials left over from the wastewater project - in an effort to keep costs down.The project involves installing eight local pump stations and 30km of reticulation on the fast-growing Omokoroa peninsula.A 355mm-wide transfer pipeline will run 14.5 km across country to Bethlehem and then to the Tauranga Chapel St treatment plant.The main pump station and a booster are being installed half way along the transfer pipeline at the end of Newnham Rd. The project is three-quarters finished.Western Bay council has received a government subsidy of $6.5 million for the wastewater scheme and Omokoroa households are paying an annual charge of $562 to cover the remaining capital costs.Once the residents switch over to the new system, they will also pay an operational fee but the actual amount has not yet been decided.Western Bay is waiting to see what Tauranga City Council will charge for pumping the Omokoroa sewage from Bethlehem and treating it at Chapel St.
