South Wairarapa District Council recently purchased land north of Pain Farm for the intended purpose of irrigating treated wastewater from the Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant (MWWTP) to land.
This is because it is an obligation of the existing resource consent for the MWWTP to discharge treated wastewater to land by 2030. It is an important step in sustainable treated wastewater management for our community. Council is also doing physical improvement works at the MWWTP to improve the quality standards of wastewater discharge and ensure resource consent condition compliance.
The proposed new site is closer to the MWWTP and has features that make it better suited to accommodate treated wastewater in an environmentally sensitive way. Ahead of detailed design, the Council is seeking input regarding preferred design features of the proposed irrigation area including planting.
The proposed new site is closer to the MWWTP and has features that make it better suited to accommodate treated wastewater in an environmentally sensitive way.
The next step involves a minor change to the 2016 resource consents, to delete references to Pain Farm as the irrigation area, and an application for a new discharge consent to authorise irrigation of treated wastewater to the new site.
The desired outcome of this work is that steady progress is made towards discharging treated wastewater to land in preference to the Ruamāhanga River and that the MWWTP operates within its resource consent conditions, facilitating growth.
