By TONY GEE
KERIKERI - A new sewage treatment plant may be built in the Waitangi Forest to cope with soaring growth in Kerikeri.
Environmental and engineering consultants are investigating possible sites.
The forest locations are among a number of site options being considered as the Far North District Council seeks to get a new sewage system for Kerikeri built and operating within five years.
Preliminary consultation on sites has been held with interested groups and organisations, including local iwi and the forestry company Rayonier.
Representatives of the mid-North's Ngapuhi Nui Tonu people have identified potential effects of a sewage system on some sites in the Waitangi Forest area and are working with the district council to try to resolve these and other issues of concern to Maori.
Far North Mayor Yvonne Sharp said this week that development undertakings in the scheme would address iwi concerns.
The proposed sewage scheme is being designed to serve more Kerikeri homes than the present system, and will have the capacity to cope with future population growth.
A consultant's report says the population of the main Kerikeri area, which would be serviced by the sewage scheme, is expected to quadruple by 2022 to 18,700 from the present 4500.
Kerikeri's overloaded sewage system, the subject of frequent odour complaints, was recently granted a resource consent by the Northland Regional Council to the year 2004.
The regional council, in granting consent to allow the plant to continue operating, has made it clear that the five-year extension should provide the Far North council with enough time to develop the new scheme.
Mrs Sharp said the regional council's consent decision also acknowledged that work carried out so far showed that the Far North council was going in the right direction.
The district council has not given any estimate of the new scheme's cost.
Mrs Sharp said costs would become clear after the round of site investigations was completed. The next step would be a resource consent application.
There are no plans to extend the new system to homes in the Rangitane, Opito Bay and Doves Bay areas on the Kerikeri Inlet's north side, nor to rural areas on the inlet's south side.
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