Riversdale ratepayers face $20,000 sewerage bill

Riversdale ratepayers will each be slapped with a $20,000 sewerage bill to scratch leaching septic tanks at the coastal resort.
A site meeting was held on Saturday between the Riversdale Beach sewerage steering group and the Riversdale Ratepayers' Association to discuss Masterton District Council's preferred option for the new sewerage system.
Masterton District Council special projects manager Ian Steer said public consultation is under way after council unanimously voted in favour of buying 17ha of the Tatham Family Trust farm at Riversdale and building a pond-based scheme with pump stations to assist the transfer of sewage.
"The ground water at Riversdale is contaminated because of the septic tank system in place and the regional council is concerned about the standard of that groundwater.
"If the septic tanks were going to remain the standard of the water would have to be improved to an almost drinking standard and that would be a huge cost," he said.
"The connection fee will cost approximately $15,000 per household and there will be an additional average cost of $5000 per household to demolish their current septic tank and relay the piping to connect with the system on the main street."
Mr Steer said council would look into ways they can assist ratepayers with their payments, whether it be in "several lump sums or over a longer time period".
"At this stage council hasn't made any commitment to taking on debt for the system so that people can do delayed payments but it will be looked at in the future."
Riversdale Beach sewerage steering group chairman Roddy McKenzie says the $20,000 price tag will be a burden for some ratepayers but the status quo is no longer an option.
"No matter what you do there will always be someone that says they could have done it cheaper. You can't do anything about that, it's just human nature."
There are four sewerage system options included in the public consultation process though building ponds on Tatham trust land would be cheaper and more economic in the long run, says Mr Steer.
The proposed scheme would involve smaller pump stations throughout the town connecting raw sewage to a rising main at the southern end of town, which would pump the sewage along the edge of the Eastleigh subdivision and into the ponds on the Tatham Trust farm site.
Mr Steer said council would own the land the ponds are on and a contract would be made with an operator to manage the system and oversee the irrigation.
"It would make sense for us to lease the bought land back to the Tathams for grazing their sheep and beef stock."
Eastleigh subdivision at Riversdale Beach is made up of 150 land titles but its owners are still to decide whether it will be part of the community sewerage system, he said.
"Eastleigh has already got a plant to service the first stage of a sewerage system and it will be cost-dependent whether they join the community scheme or not."
The life span of the new treatment plant would be around 35 years but the basic infrastructure including the pump stations will last much longer, he said.
"A short list of five consultants has been drawn up for the scheme. We will be tendering so that consultants can still offer their own preferred schemes and we will be open to those options."