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Hearings Will Decide Fate Of Contentious Wastewater Plant On Banks Peninsula
Resource consent hearings will begin on Tuesday in the Banks Peninsula seaside village of Akaroa as the Christchurch City Council seeks to move a controversial wastewater plant from the site of a 19th century massacre, and divert much of the wastewater currently discharged into the harbour at the popular tourist hotspot.
The proposed wastewater-to-land-irrigation system will replace the treatment plant at the culturally significant heritage site of Takapūneke Reserve, the scene of a massacre in 1830 known as the "Elizabeth Affair", when a British captain smuggled a Ngāti Toa war party in the brig of his ship where they would go onto raid the kāinga, killing hundreds.
For more than 60 years, the town's wastewater has been treated at the Takapūneke facility and discharged into the harbour below.
This has been described by Ngāi Tahu as "culturally repugnant", and has had a devastating impact on the ability of Ngāi Tahu whānui to engage in mahinga kai practices.
In the 1970s, the council added a rubbish dump on the site, which was capped in 1999.
But despite more than a decade of planning, revision and debate on the plant's replacement, the community is still divided on the plans.
Under the $94 million proposal, a new facility north of Akaroa would treat the wastewater, which would then be used to irrigate neighbouring farmland and native plants at Hammond Point and Robinson's Bay. The wastewater will also be discharged through an artificial wetland below the site, which opponents warn will result in frequent overflow into the harbour, and close to shore.
Representatives of Ōnuku Rūnanga and Friends of Banks Peninsula will be among those speaking to their submissions in coming days.
Friends of Banks Peninsula deputy chair Suky Thompson told RNZ earlier this month the group believed the scheme was short-sighted and costly, and failed to recognise the impacts of climate change, which they said would result in raw sewage being discharged onto the waterfront of the Akaroa Recreation Ground during increasingly common extreme weather events.
However, Ōnuku Rūnanga chair Rik Tainui has urged the council to forge ahead with decommissioning the plant at Takapūneke urgently.
Tainui said the planned scheme could mean raw sewage was discharged into the harbour once every four to five years in extreme weather events, compared to up to nine times a year under the current scheme, which also sees treated wastewater piped directly into the harbour.
Hearings will be held on Tuesday and tomorrow, before being adjourned until early February.
RNZ
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