Source: Federated Farmers
Federated Farmers says it’s outrageous that another Otago council is thinking about trucking its treated human effluent from town out onto farmland.
As part of a meeting tomorrow, Central Otago District Council (CODC) will vote whether to send thousands of cubic metres of sludge from Alexandra and Cromwell to the small community of Lauder.
“It’s absolutely staggering that the council is even discussing this after the recent outcry over Wānaka trucking its treated excrement to a Lauder farm,” Feds Otago president Anna Gillespie says.
“People all over the country – not just farmers down here – have been so angry to hear about Otago Regional Council granting consent to do that.
“We’re calling on CODC to either remove this item from their agenda or vote it down tomorrow.”
CODC staff have recommended that the solution to Cromwell’s growing mountain of accumulated sludge waste is to spread it on farmland in the Manuherekia catchment.
Gillespie says that’s a kick in the guts for farmers there who’ve long been bagged by councils and the government for alleged poor water quality.
“I’m surprised the environmental groups are being so quiet on this. It’s a sensitive catchment and landowners have worked extremely hard to lift standards and protect groundwater and waterways.
“Central government invested more than $4 million in Jobs for Nature funding to boost that work through the Thomson’s catchment project and Waiora Manuherekia.
“Now it seems urban areas from all over the province reckon it’s fine to transfer a by-product of what they flush to this same sensitive catchment under some sort of ‘out of sight, out of mind’ delusion.
“Our call for Local Government Minister Simon Watts to intervene is now even more pressing.”
News broke several weeks ago that a consent had been granted for up to 2000 cubic metres of sewage sludge from Wānaka and Albert Town to be spread across 178 hectares of a former sheep and beef farm in Lauder.
A further 3600 cubic metres of waste from grease traps, mud tanks/sumps and winery wastewater can also be spread on the property.
The consent was granted non-notified, meaning there was no public hearing, as the effects were judged to be ‘no more than minor’.
Gillespie acknowledges strict monitoring conditions are attached to the consent but says there’s deep scepticism among rural residents about modelling showing the Lauder farm can handle the sludge.
“Experienced local farmers know what a farm like this – with porous gravelly soils and low rainfall – can realistically produce by way of crops to soak up effluent nutrients.
“There is a serious mismatch between those estimations and what the consent allows.”
The same consent that allows Queenstown Lakes District Council to contract SJ Allen Ltd to transport and dump Wānaka’s sludge at Lauder allows Central Otago District Council to do the same.
Sludge – the remains of micro-organisms that have disgested human wastewater – has been stored in geobags at the Cromwell treatment plant.
The geobags act as sieves, allowing the sludge to dry out, so the material is not so heavy and expensive to transport.
But the council is running out of room to store the geobags and another 20,000 cubic metres of sludge from the bottom of the wastewater settlement ponds also needs to be moved “as a matter of urgency”, a council report says.
If it isn’t, the plant could be in breach of its own consent, and more expensive treatment requirements may be triggered.
Sludge from the Alexandra treatment plant also needs to be dealt with.
The report to Wednesday’s meeting says the council could save about $600,000 if the sludge is taken to Lauder, rather than transporting it to a landfill in Winton, a disposal method used in the past.
“We all understand the desire to save ratepayers’ money, but this shouldn’t be at the expense of water quality in a sensitive catchment upstream of public water intakes,” Gillespie says.
“Federated Farmers, and many rural residents, want the Lauder farm consent to be re-investigated.
“Spreading treated effluent on land and in forests is not new, but the characteristics of the site selected makes it highly unsuitable.
“We’re calling on Central Otago District councillors to kick this short-sighted plan to touch.”