Rotorua lakes to get health makeover - New sewage treatment scheme under way by next year

By REBECCA DEVINE in Rotorua

Rotorua's lakes should become healthier next year when a major sewerage scheme takes the place of old septic tanks.
The new sewerage scheme will replace the tanks in the Mourea and Okawa Bay communities from April - reducing the nutrients going into Okawa Bay by two-thirds.
It is expected to have an immediate and long-lasting impact on the city's ailing lakes, especially when combined with the Ohau Channel diversion which was given consent last month.
The scheme is the first part of a major project to give the city's outlying areas sewerage schemes.
Over the next ten years the council will spend almost $90 million on the project.
Rotorua District Council district engineer Nico Claassen said the obvious benefits for the lakes would mean less runoff than from the present septic tanks.
He said while the public might not be able to see the scheme's immediate effects they would be there.
"There will be an immediate effect - you just don't always see what is happening."
He said it would also improve public health issues to do with water in the area - something which was recognised with a 50 per cent subsidy from the Ministry of Health.
The scheme will see sewage from the area pumped into town through a major trunk line then connect into the urban scheme near Owhata.
The $6 million trunk main is 80 per cent complete and should be finished in March.
The individual reticulation system for the Mourea and Okawa Bay areas, which cost about $3.2 million, is completed and is just waiting for the trunk line to be finished.
It is up to individual property owners to connect their property to the line.
Mr Claassen said the trunk line should be in commission in early April with the first properties able to connect to it by the end of the month
He said the project was on track, or even ahead of schedule, although there had been "some small hiccups" in the beginning.
The decision to put a sewerage scheme into the area was first touted in 2003 and it was decided to pump the waste back into town instead of having a stand-alone scheme for the area.
Work will start next year on connecting the Rotokawa and Brunswick areas into the sewerage scheme, followed by the connection of Okere Falls, Otaramarae and Whangamarino, which are due to be connected in late in 2008.
This year it was also decided to pump the sewage from Okareka into town in a project due to be completed in 2008.
Sewerage schemes are also in place for Tarawera, Hamurana, Gisborne Point and Rotoma. Designs for the schemes have not yet been drawn up and the council must still decide whether the areas will have stand-alone schemes or if sewage will be pumped back to the city's waste water treatment plant.
Rotoiti Ratepayers' and Residents' Association chairwoman Sally Brock said the sewerage scheme was a "real positive step forward".
She said it alone would make a small difference to Lake Rotoiti as a whole, but combined with the Ohau Channel diversion would be a huge help .
"Definitely the two of them will make a huge difference."