Tarawera sewerage scheme hearing: Judge to prioritise decision

Protesters wave flags and a sign reading 'wāhi tapu' on Māori land at Lake Rotokākahi. Photo / Laura Smith

An Environment Court judge says a decision on the paused Tarawera Sewerage Scheme will be a priority following a hearing today.

The Rotorua Lakes Council project would connect hundreds of Tarawera households to the town sewerage system and is aimed at reducing lake pollution.

Council contractors restarted work for the final 1.3km of pipeline on February 24 with an injunction order in place to stop interference at sacred Lake Rotokākahi.

The Rotokākahi Board of Control oversees the iwi-owned private lake and is among those who have protested the scheme route and have occupied Māori land excluded from the injunction.

The area is considered wāhi tapu, with tūpuna (ancestors) buried nearby during the 1886 Mt Tarawera eruption.

The board and Protect Rotokākahi Society initiated Environment Court proceedings and asserted, among other things, the council should have acquired resource consent for the works.

A judge-ordered pause on the works was issued several days later and an urgent hearing scheduled for today.

When ordering the pause Judge Laurie Newhook said he had “significant worries in both directions” and pausing the work was a pragmatic response to an “urgent but complex problem”.

The hearing was held today before Newhook and Environment Commissioner Glenice Paine.

One of the main points of contention was whether the scheme fell into the district plan’s definition of earthworks as being the disturbance of land surfaces by excavation or filling.

If it did it would be considered a discretionary activity in the Rotokākahi area under the district plan.

The applicant’s counsel considered it did and therefore believed it required more than the section 87BB council decision permitting the activity under the Resource Management Act, and that effects were more than minor.

The council’s counsel said it was subsurface activity and the section 87BB decision was adequate.

Another point was whether all matters could be resolved by the Environment Court or whether some were a matter for judicial review in the High Court.

Newhook concluded by saying he was presented with some “curly issues”.

“We’ll be endeavouring to issue our decision just as soon as possible.”

He said he and Paine would need to put other cases aside in order to make this a priority.

He said a decision would take weeks rather than months.

“We are aware of the fiscal consequences of a decision not emerging all that quickly.”

Laura Smith is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. She previously reported general news for the Otago Daily Times and Southland Express, and has been a journalist since 2019.

- LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.