Far North District Council in court over discharges from Sweetwaters project

The controversial Sweetwaters aquifer project has taken a new twist with Far North District Council and contractor Ventia being prosecuted for alleged illegal discharges into a wetland.

■ This story has been updated since publication with the callover date for the defendants in this case.

The controversial Sweetwaters Aquifer saga has taken another twist, with Far North District Council and its contractor Ventia being prosecuted by the top environmental watchdog for alleged illegal discharges into a wetland.

The council started the Sweetwaters project in 2011, with the scheme gathering pace after the 2020 drought that hit Northland. It was designed to provide clean drinking water for Kaitāia and surrounds and do away with the need to take water from the vulnerable Awanui River. The situation got so bad that water tanks had to be placed in Kaitāia as the Awanui River ran extremely low during the drought.

But the project has been dogged with problems and the project has now soaked up more than $17m of ratepayer money, with the council insiders saying the final cost is likely to top $20m, but the council denies it will reach that level.

It missed two deadlines over the past two years, but water was finally delivered into the public water supply in February.

Compounding the delays, the Government’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) said last May it issued an abatement notice to FNDC in relation to unauthorised discharge of water from Sweetwater bores.

“The abatement notice required the council to immediately stop discharging water from the bores to the surrounding wetland. This abatement notice remains in place,” the EPA said at the time.

“As New Zealand’s national environmental regulator, the EPA undertook the investigation following a request from the Northland Regional Council. Under the RMA [Resource Management Act], the EPA has specific enforcement powers to assist and intervene in an enforcement action of a council.”

This week the EPA took the council and Ventia to court, with each facing three charges, one of discharging abstracted ground water into the Sweetwaters wetland and two counts of violating restricted land use.

The maximum penalty for discharging abstracted groundwater without proper authorisation or in contravention of a resource consent can be a fine of up to $300,000 and/or imprisonment for up to two years. The maximum penalty for violating restricted land use under the Resource Management Act (RMA) is a fine of $600,000 for companies and NZ$300,000 for individuals, or, for individuals, a prison sentence of up to two years.

The case was called in the Whangārei District Court on Monday where the parties were remanded June 13, to appear for callover.

FNDC did not want to comment on the matter as the case was before the courts. The EPA said it would not comment while the matter was before the courts.

Te Hiku ward district councillor Mate Radich is not surprised his council is being prosecuted over the Sweetwaters aquifer project.

Te Hiku ward district councillor Mate Radich, a long-time critic of the escalating costs of the project, said he was not surprised at the latest twist in the Sweetwater saga, saying it would add yet more costs to the project that he believed were already well out of control.

“This has been dogged by problems from the very start. It’s just going to add even more costs to this. And I still have not been able to get the full costs of this from the council, despite asking several times,” Radich said.

One issue holding up the project was sourcing a membrane filter from overseas to install at the Kaitāia Water Treatment Plant to treat both the Sweetwater bore and Awanui River sources. That was finally installed in February.