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Bernard Orsman
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Members of Stop Polluting the Manukau Harbour Society at the proposed treatment site (from left) Jim Jackson, David Jackson, Olivia Jackson, Tessa Gasson, Rose McLaughlan and Mark Gasson. Photo / Jason Oxenham
Residents in a small rural community on the Manukau Harbour have won a battle against Watercare’s plan to build a $400 million wastewater treatment plant on prime horticultural soils.
Following a four-day hearing where Watercare and a team of lawyers and experts sought resource consent to rezone a 56ha market garden at Glenbrook Beach Rd for wastewater purposes, commissioners knocked back the country’s largest water company.
They recommended Watercare scrap its plans because it already has the necessary consents to upgrade the nearby wastewater plant at Waiuku on industrial-zoned land next to the Glenbrook steel mill.
“That existing site can also be developed in a way that will have fewer effects on the environment, including the people and communities of the Glenbrook beach area,” said the panel of three commissioners.
With six days left before the appeal period closes on February 5, Watercare is not saying if it will appeal or abide by the recommendation to withdraw its notice of requirement to build at Glenbrook.
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“We are absolutely ecstatic. We celebrated. We partied, but we are still aware that we are not out of the woods yet,” said Mark Gasson, chair of Stop Polluting the Manukau Harbour Society, which has framed the battle as a choice between “sh*t or potato”.
He said the society was especially concerned about the impact of treated effluent taking 19 to 21 days to “fester” in the Manukau Harbour before reaching the Tasman Sea, saying the better solution is to cut out the middleman and pipe it directly out to sea.
“We have chased them away to a better site. Should Watercare decide to do the foolish thing, we will continue fighting them and we will prevail,” Gasson said.
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In a letter to Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown and a group of councillors on June 20, the society’s secretary Rose McLaughlan said there is a need for wastewater expansion in the area but “an industrial plant of this nature will be an absolute eyesore and blot on our beautiful rural environment”.
She said the costs have ballooned from an estimated $128m in 2016 to more than $400m “and we fully expect that will exceed $500m by the time it is finished”.
McLaughlan said for several years, Watercare maintained the best practical option was to locate the plant at Waiuku and briefly considered a site at Clarks Beach, before paying $11.26m for the land valued at $4m at Glenbrook Beach Rd in September last year.
In a statement, Watercare said building a regional wastewater treatment plant in Waiuku would require two pipelines – one to carry the raw wastewater from the Glenbrook, Clarks Beach and Kingseat communities down to Waiuku, and a second pipeline to take the treated wastewater to the outfall near the Clarks Beach Golf Course.
“This would result in higher costs,” Watercare said.
The Glenbrook Beach Rd project has similarities to Watercare’s plans for a $400m water treatment plant at Ōrātia in West Auckland six years ago.
On that occasion – following fierce opposition from the local community, which faced the loss of up to 18 homes and rural properties – the board ditched the plan and chose to build a new plant alongside the existing Huia water treatment plant in Titirangi.
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