Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

As far as I am concerned, any sewerage that gets into our harbour is very regrettable.

t can occur in two ways – from septic tanks adjacent to the harbour, which are not adequate or properly maintained, or from overflows from municipal reticulated sewerage systems. Concerned about reports from constituents about sewage overflows in Tauranga, Bay of Plenty Regional Councillors asked staff to report on how well Tauranga City Council is managing its sewerage network.

A recent independent report on the performance of Tauranga's sewerage reticulation system made some key points which I would like to share.

Unfortunately, no urban sewerage system can be designed cost-effectively to cope with all extreme weather events, so from time to time, sewage overflows will occur.

Apart from extreme weather events, other causes of overflows include blockages from fat deposits, foreign objects and tree root invasion.

Tauranga City Council is managing its sewerage system well and compares very favourably to other cities in terms of the incidence of sewage overflows.

During the last three years, overflow events have been decreasing in Tauranga and the perception of a large – and increasing – number of overflows may be due to Tauranga City Council's transparent approach to the issue.

Tauranga City Council is proactively taking a range of measures to reduce the number of overflows occurring. These include; upgrading the network and its pumping stations; working to complete the new southern pipeline; re-lagging ‘sagging' areas of pipe where fat build up occurs; proactively clearing pipes subject to blockage; and educating commercial and industrial property owners where many problems originate.

This is good news and the regional council will be seeking ongoing annual reports on how the sewerage system is performing – hopefully it will continue to improve. One issue for us to consider going forward is the fact that, at present, the sporadic sewage overflow discharges are not authorised by resource consent. Our independent review recommended regional council consider seeking a resource consent application from Tauranga City to cover these. But because of the complexity of the legislation, recommended we seek legal advice because different regions take differing approaches on this. I understand the need for this, but it all takes time and money, which could be better spent on cleaning up our harbour – or preventing overflows in the first place.

If you have views about this, or any other issue, please email neesj@xtra.co.nz