Far North council, contractor ‘unlawfully discharged’ 90m litres of groundwater into Sweetwater Wetland

The alleged illegal discharge of more than 90 million litres of groundwater into the Sweetwater Wetland from the Sweetwater Aquifer, above, has landed Far North District Council and its water contractor Ventia in court.

Far North District Council and its water contractor Ventia face potentially big fines if they are found guilty of allegedly illegally discharging more than 90 million litres of groundwater into the Sweetwater Wetland.

The council and Ventia are being prosecuted by the country’s top environmental watchdog - the Government’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) under the Resource Management Act (RMA) - and the case was called in Whangārei District Court last week.

Both defendants face a charge each of illegally discharging abstracted groundwater within 100 metres of the Sweetwater Bore Wetland and two charges each of undertaking earthworks or vegetation clearance within a 10-metre setback from the same natural wetland.

They have entered not guilty pleas to the representative charges - meaning they happened on more than one occasion - and the matter will be back before the court on June 13, at 9am. The maximum penalties for the offences are a fine of no more than $600,000.

The charging document for the illegal discharge charge alleges that the parties intermittently discharged approximately 90,223,000 litres of abstracted groundwater (the equivalent of 36 Olympic-sized swimming pools) within a 100 metre setback from a natural inland wetland ... when there as a hydrological connection between the discharge and the wetland, the discharge would enter the wetland and the discharge was likely to change water level, range of hydrological function of the wetland and the discharge was not allowed under the RMA.

On the other charges it’s alleged they undertook vegetation clearance within a natural wetland and within a 10-metre setback of the wetland, and that they undertook earthworks within a 10-metre setback of the wetlands.

The charges came after last May the EPA 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.

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 it has now soaked up more than $17 million 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.

Another 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.