$1m sewage system for Rathkeale College

Rathkeale College is picking up the entire $1m cost of construction and connection and paying the full development contribution.

A state-of-the-art sewage treatment system for Rathkeale College costing over a million dollars to construct should become operational early next year.

The college is to be linked into the Masterton District Council sewer line by a pressure line that will carry greywater to the sewer joining it at the junction with Cashmere Downs.

Rathkeale is picking up the entire cost of construction and connection and paying the full development contribution required by the district council.

Chief executive of the Trinity Schools Board Stephen Carr said the work had to be done to meet Greater Wellington Regional Council's environmental standards.

"Rathkeale celebrates its 50th jubilee next year and what was permissible 50 years ago on how human waste is treated is no longer acceptable," he said.

Mr Carr said the board had considered two options for upgrading the system, one being an on-site treatment and the other pumping into the council's sewer.

Organisations such as the regional council, Fish and Game and local landowners had been consulted and the "only long-term solution had been to connect into the sewer by way of a 63mm pipe", Mr Carr said.

Rathkeale has for decades been using oxidation ponds but under the new system all wastewater will be collected and churned to a slurry in a special chamber.

The resulting greywater will be pumped to the town sewer and any remaining solids collected by a septic tank cleaning company.

Masterton district Council's assets and operations manager David Hopman said payments by Rathkeale not only covered connection costs and the development contribution but a portion was also directed towards urban network upgrades.

He said receiving the Rathkeale waste by a pressure line feeding into a manhole by Cashmere Downs would pose no problem to the capacity of the town's sewerage system.