cartertondc.co.nz

Please use this forum for general issues and comments.

The Council is finalising its vision for the wastewater issue. Currently the thoughts are:

The Carterton District Council’s long-term vision for the Dalefield Road Wastewater treatment Plant is to be discharging all treated effluent to land except in extreme weather events. The Council is aiming to achieve this in partnership with farmers in the area rather than the Council having to own land. The progress towards achieving this vision will be governed by the practical realities of achieving suitable arrangements and the ability of the Carterton community to pay for the improvements.

Watch this space - the Council is currently revising this vision..........

1. currently only2% of the discharge goes to land yet u don’t discharge for three months of the year…so u are removing max 25% from the system…say 15%. Does that mean then you have storage for 13% of the treated effluent??within the current pond system??
The ponds are drawn down a bit before December and the level raised over the summer months. Flows are held back and gradually discharged over the winter. Note the storage is dirty storage i.e. in the ponds
2. if so with a nearby user taking most of the effluent in summer does that mean u could utilize nearly 30% of the treated effluent by holding low storage volumes thru the summer and topping up the storage when you have to discharge to water???
No. There are a few things that come into play, mainly dirty storage Vs clean storage - there is currently no clean storage so discharge to land is limited by the treatment capacity.
3. my point the other night about having a scenario, clumsily put, has me thinking what im asking for a best and worst case scenario…this then gives me a feel for what is likely to be achieved and shows me the critical points in the timeline.
I have spent most of the time since the meeting investigating the big picture because of your comment. Whilst my comment at the time is still valid (that we don't have enough facts to lay out a timeline), my big picture review has thrown up some curlies and possibly a large positive. Too early to go into details, but hopefully over the next week I will have something to report.
4. I note despite no discharge during summer there is still an effect on the mangatarere downstream of the discharge point during summer. Does this suggest some over irrigating/leakage into the river system??
It is really difficult to tell with the data available. I shall ask Stu for comment, but I wasn't able to make any definite comment from the data I have seen (on why it might be the case and where it might be coming from).
5. the critical nutrient may be phosphate – what are the sources of phosphate in the town?
Stu has mentioned this before in terms of engaging the public with ways of reducing nutrients - plus of course the industrial loading which we discussed.
Ian Gunn
Comments by Andy D

andy is there a way that those who are registered can be notified of any postings????cheeeers ian

If you 'subscribe' to a forum, I think it sends an alert when there is a new post. A

Ian, I'm not aware of any significnt direct leakge to water from the system. We are however, irrigating at quite a high aerial loading rate into land realtively close to the Magatarere, with subsoils which are realatively permeable. There are also the ponds and wetlands from which there may be some minor subsurface seepage. During times of rainfall, the small unanmed tributary which the plant dischrages into when it is dicharging to water may also carry a storm water flow with some contaminants present, and I guess there may be other dischrages coming into the Mangaterere along the stretch between our upstream and downstream sampling points. I would, however, say the main source of the increased levels would be via ground water. Stu