Wanganui's wastewater treatment plant faces further delays with the Whanganui District Council not willing to commit to a reconstruction until all issues have been resolved.
Key among the issues of concern are the sludge the plant will produce, how to deal with it, and the operating costs.
Work was meant to start in September last year but independent reviews raised concerns with the redesign prompting council to call for a delay until those were sorted.
After an in-committee council meeting yesterday, Mayor Annette Main told the Chronicle it could be be June before council would be able to make its final decision and the rebuild can start. That would tie it in with the adoption of the council's 10-Year Plan which would include funding for the rebuild.
She said council's decision was not specifically tied to that timeline but was more a realistic way to ensure "we have all the right information to be able to make the right decision".
The wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) has been troubled since it was commissioned in 2007 but problems became critical in the summer of 2012 when stench from the ponds affected most of the city.
The plant was decommissioned as council looked for alternatives and since February last year all the city's waste has been partially treated at the Beach Rd pumping station and diverted directly to the ocean outfall off South Beach.
The latest delay now means council has to go back to Horizons Regional Council to obtain short-term consents to continue the ocean discharge.
Ms Main said council was committed to a rebuild that was affordable and addressed environmental considerations.
"Back in December we delayed construction because of concerns about how affordable the plant's operating costs would be. The key concern is about how we deal with the sludge produced in the plant because the decisions we make around that will affect operating costs.
"This is about getting it absolutely right. We're not prepared to jump in until we've had assurance about costs and whether it's affordable."
She said until these issues were resolved council could not give a timetable for the reconstruction nor precise figures for the job.
Council has been working under emergency provisions in terms of discharge consents but she said that could not continue.
"We need to get a short-term resource consent to accommodate the delay and continue discharge through the ocean outfall."
She said given all those issues, council could not give a precise start date for construction at Airport Rd.
Council CEO Kevin Ross said council was continuing to work with Hawkins Infrastructure "to keep them in the loop" as they remained council's preferred contractor for the job.
And he said council was still working with the city's industries who remain major users of the WWTP, and those talks were "positive".
Ms Main said the 10-Year Plan council was preparing would include detail around planning and costs of the WWTP.
This week council received an update on a sludge management strategy and she said it confirmed that further assessment of options was needed before council made a final decision.