Residents ‘dismayed’ council is pushing ahead with Akaroa wastewater scheme

Friday, 16 May 2025

One council has spent 17 years looking for a way to get rid of a town's waste. A solution is on the horizon, but not without a fight.

The Christchurch City Council is pushing ahead with a contentious $94 million wastewater treatment scheme in Akaroa, to the shock of local residents who oppose it.

Opponents were hopeful they had scored a win when a hearing into the council’s resource consent application was adjourned in February, and when the council said in March it needed time to respond to rigorous questioning by commissioners.

At the time, the council said it would yet again consider alternative schemes - something local residents have been asking for.

Come Wednesday, council lawyers had responded to the commissioners’ questions and the council announced it would proceed with the plan as is. Any alternatives could be considered down the road, if needed.

Steep farmland at Robinson’s Bay near Akaroa, where large storage tanks will hold waste to be irrigated onto kānuka forest.

The council also clarified it would not pause the process even if it was unclear what impact the Government’s signalled changes to wastewater standards and other legislation later this year would be.

“We can’t pre-empt what the changes to the national standards may be and what a council might want to do at that time,” Gavin Hutchison, the council’s head of Three Waters, told The Press.

What the council had taken on board from the hearing commissioners was that it should apply for resource consents to discharge treated and/or raw wastewater into Akaroa Harbour, even if the council believed it would only happen in emergencies - like extreme weather events - and argued it was not a feature of the scheme.

In doing so - both consents would be lodged by January - the council tentatively offered to make the consents open to public feedback.

“However, this [offer to invite feedback] may change if there are any material amendments to the relevant government legislation before that time,” the council announcement said.

Its 59-page memorandum to commissioners, dated May 13, responded to dozens of questions, which a spokesperson from Friends of Banks Peninsula - a group of residents who hired their own experts to challenge the council’s plans - said they were still working through.

“We are astounded and dismayed that, only one day after lifting an 11-day state of emergency for Banks Peninsula, the council is choosing to pursue this costly and high risk scheme,” the group said in a statement.

A statement on behalf of Friends of Banks Peninsula says locals are “astounded and dismayed” by the council’s decision, which came one day after a state of emergency was lifted. (File photo)

“Once again heavy rain has overwhelmed the sewer system in Akaroa, flooding businesses and residences with raw sewage, and the southern end of the town still sits under the threat of a major land slip, demonstrating Banks Peninsula’s inherently unstable geology.”

They believed the council was downplaying the issues and risk by pushing ahead with its preferred scheme. They wanted the council to focus on developing an alternative that was more affordable, safe and resilient to climate change.

Hutchison said moving forward with the resource consent applications did not rule out alternative schemes, which the council would consider after new national rules were in place.

The council’s review of alternatives would be presented in evidence once the hearing resumed, he said, after the new consents were lodged.

In an April council meeting, city councillors were told proposed new national standards for wastewater treatment could lower standards and allow the council to build a cheaper plant.

However, no councillor or staff member endorsed a lesser Akaroa scheme at the time.