BOARD SEES SEWAGE PLANT IN OPERATION

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29801, 18 April 1962, Page 14

BOARD SEES SEWAGE PLANT IN OPERATION

“You have here a plant which the public will be able to appreciate: they will realise that their rates are not just going down the drain,” said Mr J. T. Noorgard, an American engineer, last evening to the Christchurch Board.

Mr Noorgard has come to New Zealand for the commissioning of the new sewage treatment plant at Bromley as a representative of the design engineers, Brown and Caldwell, of San Francisco. The board inspected the plant, which is now treating the metropolitan area’s sewage, before its ordinary monthly meeting last evening. The project had really begun about 16 years ago when the board began looking forward to a sewage treatment plant and extending its reticulation. Mr Noorgard said. “This is a major undertaking. not only for a city of your size, but for any city,” he' said. “Much of your millions of pounds have gone into holes in the ground. This plant is the little bit that sticks out the top, but even it, like the proverbial iceberg, has perhaps nine-tenths under the ground." The design engineers hoped and believed that the board now had the structure and

equipment which would service the city for decades. It could be added to to increase the capacity by 50 per cent and even more.

“Nearing completion, as we are, of the actual construction. we may sometimes forget that a plant of this nature is never complete.” Mr Noorgard said. “You can always anticipate some minor improvement programme throughout the years ” He congratulated the board on its planning and the contractors “and workers on the construction, which he said was comparable to any elsewhere in the world. Board members, saw the plant operating, and heard from the sewage treatment engineer (Mr D. L. Steven) that only a limited amount of finishing work remained to be done on the main process structures

The board also received from a Cuthberts road resident a complaint of smells from the oxidation ponds Mr Steven was instructed to visit the resident to discuss the complaint.