Rodney could go it alone on sewerage

By Mathew Dearnaley

AUCKLAND - North-west Auckland may become a battlefield for rival sewage schemes, harming a $45 million project to free up capacity at the Mangere treatment plant.

Local body-owned Watercare Services yesterday rejected a suggestion that its grand plan could be dashed by a smaller potential scheme confined to Rodney District Council ratepayers.

But a Rodney manager said there was no place for two plants in the area, and his council had to go with the most economical scheme for its ratepayers.
Waitakere City Council has also yet to decide whether it will support Watercare's scheme.

Watercare has already paid $1.9 million for 50ha of farmland at Taupaki for a satellite plant capable of serving 20,000 to 160,000 users.

Modular units will be progressively installed to treat sewage with ultraviolet lights.

Auckland Regional Council planners say this would suit the region's draft growth strategy by aiming to service new urban zones while freeing up capacity at Mangere to allow more intensive development in older areas.

But the planners are uneasy about a possible Rodney scheme for Kumeu, Huapai and Riverhead.

This could overlap the larger project, they say in a report, meaning that Watercare and Rodney need to consult each other to ensure the provision of efficient wastewater services in West Auckland.

Rodney's water services manager, Ian Petty, said it had not formed any firm proposal but staff had looked at a number of options and had recommended more studies "to ascertain the best value for money for residents."

He said Watercare was outside its designated drainage area so Rodney would decide whether to hook its ratepayers to the larger scheme.

That scheme would need local users to ensure it began with high-enough water flows, and building two plants would be "bad politics and bad engineering."

A Watercare spokesman, Owen Cook, said the company was driven more by a need to reduce loads on Mangere than to treat Rodney's sewage, but was offering that district a solution to its waste problems as well.

He acknowledged that it was up to Rodney, a minor owner of Watercare, to decide whether to connect ratepayers to the project, but denied that it would founder without such support.

Les Simmons, a neighbour and head of a new community group opposed to the Watercare project, said residents did not care who built a new plant as long as it was done properly.

But they questioned the buying of property in a greenbelt to treat sewage and pipe it 12km to a discharge point in the Kumeu River, when a land-based disposal site such as the Woodhill forest should have been sought.