New wastewater treatment plant to be built in New Zealand’s Whanganui District

New Zealand’s Whanganui District Council has given approval for construction of a $40m wastewater treatment plant in the region.

Construction of the project was delayed in 2014 due to uncertainty regarding affordability and sludge disposal, which have since been addressed.

The new plant will feature a sludge drying facility. Though the facility involves an initial high capital, it will eventually cut annual operating costs.

In November 2015, councillors agreed to commission CH2M Beca to carry out a two-stage process.

The first stage was designed to analyse the potential of having a new discharge consent with less strict conditions. In stage two the Cardno-designed plant was evaluated to determine if it was the best solution to environment-related and cost-efficiency issues.

Execution of the second stage depended on the results generated in stage one.

The wastewater treatment plant construction is now estimated to cost $39m, including an additional cost of $7.4m for the sludge dryer facility and the disposing dried sludge to land.

Earlier, the council agreed for $6.5m to provide covered stabilisation tanks and other odour controlling features for the plant.

Whanganui Mayor Annette Main said: "All the groundwork has been done to ensure the council has made the right and most responsible decision for a plant, which is affordable and environmentally sound.

"The design has been peer-reviewed by two independent wastewater experts and the costs have been reviewed externally.

"Our council has initiated a debt repayment programme, which along with funds received from the sale of Wanganui Gas, has cleared the previous debt. This has enabled us to build the new plant without the addition of added debt."

Operations at the existing plant have been closed since 2013 after a malfunction of the plant resulted in a foul smell spreading in the district.

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Image: Whanganui District Council has agreed for a wastewater treatment plant in the district. Photo: courtesy of Toa55/Freedigitalphotos.