Sewage discharge opposed

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 5

Sewage discharge opposed

PA Wanaka Unanimous support for an objection to an application for the emergency discharge of sewage into Lake Wanaka from a new condominium project on the lake front has been expressed at a meeting between ratepayers and the Lakes County Council. When the matter was raised at a two-hour questions session in the Wanaka Public Hall, councillors were asked their views on the application of the Edgewaterfcondominium and the

general issue of sewage disposal into the lake. The chairman of the Wanaka District Committee, Mr Lloyd Dunn, said the committee had already lodged an objection with the Otago Catchment Board against the granting of a water right. “We have had our say in the matter,” he said. The Wanaka Station Trust, which sold the condominium site to the Christchurch developments, Paynter and Hamilton, Ltd, applied to the CaJ|hment

Board for permission to discharge up to 180,000 litres of raw sewage a day into a tributary of Lake Wanaka in an emergency. The proposed discharge point is opposite the intake for the town’s new water scheme, 2km across Roys Bay. The Catchment Board has put off a decision because of recent High Court challenges to similar cases in Auckland. One questioner asked councillors and executive staff if the lake was, in fact, the emergency outlet for

the Wanaka town sewage system. There was no answer to the question. After an expression of support for the district committee’s objection was passed without dissent, Mrs Jill Blennerhassett, who said she was speaking for the Wanaka Station Trust, said that a public system being installed at the Edgewater complex was to lift sewage into the town system, not. discharge it into -ythe lake.