Palmy wastewater revamp rejected for lack of details on land discharge

Palmerston North City Council is trying to clean up its wastewater. Photo / Supplied

Insufficient information has been given as the reason why Horizons Regional Council has rejected Palmerston North City’s consent application for Nature Calls.

Horizons Regional Council’s Sara Westcott, team leader consents, said Horizons “has undertaken a robust and comprehensive review of the application made by Palmerston North City Council to discharge treated wastewater to water and land”.

“We would like to commend and acknowledge PNCC for the large volume of work and scale of assessment undertaken to support their application.

“The initial review of any consent application received is to ensure that an application contains sufficient information to enable assessment and undertake a robust consent process.

Palmerston North's current wastewater treatment plant in Totara Rd. The council submitted a resource consent application for a new wastewater treatment plant late last year, which was rejected.

“Unfortunately the application was lacking information, specifically with respect to the proposed discharge to land component of the application. As a result, Horizons has returned the application as incomplete. Horizons is committed to working with all parties moving forward, to provide advice to ensure that a complete consent application can be lodged.”

Palmerston North City Council, which received the bad news late last week, has subsequently expressed its disappointment at this decision, and chief executive Waid Crockett said he was seeking urgent consultation with Horizons.

“We are still working through the detail that has been provided by Horizons Regional Council and will look to meet with them with urgency to get more information to go through the next steps and get some new timelines in place.

“We want to reassure our community that Palmerston North is committed to getting our consent and obtaining the best outcome for our city, our environment and our awa.”

Nature Calls is a radical overhaul of the city’s wastewater treatment costing hundreds of millions of dollars. The application for the new plan was filed in December last year. The plan is to continue discharge of treated wastewater into the Manawatū River, except when its water level is very low, when the treated wastewater will go to land. This discharge to land is too much up in the air and that is where Horizons currently sees a problem. So it has returned the consent application as incomplete.

The plan is to move the wastewater discharge point to around 4km downstream from the wastewater treatment plant on Totara Rd, close to Walkers Rd. The river is deeper and flowing faster there which means the treated water mixes with the river water more effectively and efficiently. That part of the river also hasn’t changed much over the past century.

The city council is planning on rezoning land to allow for more housing in the western parts of the city and this means the discharge structure wouldn’t be close to residential areas. The location was discussed with Rangitāne and with Horizons’ engineers.

Rangitāne have advised the council that offsetting the residual effects on the mauri of the awa is more appropriate than the initially proposed wetland and they’d rather another part of the awa environment be restored.

At this stage there is no land available to use any treated wastewater on in irrigation, as is the plan for the times when land discharge is called for.