Sewage discharge concerns board

Press, 30 August 1986, Page 9

Sewage discharge concerns board

North Canterbury Catchment Board members are concerned about the Lyttelton Borough Council’s failure to report on how it plans to treat raw sewage discharged near Cashin Quay. June 30 was the date by which the council was supposed to have reported to the board. A condition in the board’s water right allowing the discharge was that the council devise better ways to deal with the sewage and report back to the board.

The board’s group leader of water quality, Mr Bob Ayrey, said yesterday that the board was not prepared to extend the . water right continually for an unsatisfactory discharge of sewage.

t Mr P. D. Dunbar told yesterday’s resources

committee meeting that the board was wasting its time expecting the council to improve the sewage discharge with its “meagre” resources.

“The matter has to come back into the attention of mainstream city and provincial considerations,” he said. Board monitoring of Cass Bay and Diamond Harbour sewage discharge has revealed that the effluent quality has not always been up to required standards.

The investigating officer, Mr Ken Taylor, reported staff concern that the Lyttelton Borough Council had not supplied sufficient monitoring results from both discharges. Occasional high faecal coliform counts by board staff near the Cass Bay discharge reflected its un-

satisfactory location near a water recreation area, he reported. The committee also expressed concern that the Akaroa sewage treatment plant had beeen overtaxed during the last two summers. Emergency discharges of raw sewage occurred four times during the two summers, the committee was told. The raw sewage discharges were not encompassed by the board’s water rights, Mr Taylor reported. The pumping station’s warning devices had not given prompt enough warning of difficulties, he said. This was needed to allow time for remedial action, other than discharging raw sewage, while the plant still had extra storage capacity.