Last updated 15:25, May 1 2018
GEORGE HEARD/STUFF
The new Waiho River stop bank in Franz Josef pictured on February 2, 2018.
The new Waiho River stop bank in Franz Josef pictured on February 2, 2018.
The Westland District Council was meant to have a new sewerage system up and running in the tourist town of Franz Josef on Monday.
Instead, there are two old sewage ponds that do not work properly and the council has been sent a cease and desist notice by the West Coast Regional Council (WCRC) for discharging sewage into a glacial river bed.
In November 2016, the Environment Court ordered the district council to undertake several works on the town's overloaded sewage ponds.
The Waiho River with the sewage ponds on the left.
The underground system meant to carry sewage away kept getting destroyed by the Waiho River, meaning the sewage ended up in the river.
Instead of finishing the works, the district council dug a new trench that discharged sewage onto the river bed.
A South Auckland cake decorator won a Westland District Council project to build a $7 million sewage plant in Franz Josef. The contract has since been re-tendered.
WCRC consents and compliance manager Heather McKay said the district council was issued an Environment Court enforcement order for its failure to comply with the court's initial order.
"Westland District Council has a completion date of [Monday] to install a new system. This will not be complied with."
She said the regional council had not made any further decisions about the court order yet.
The Waiho River, on the South Island's West Coast, is prone to flooding.
The regional council said sewage could only be discharged through an underground trench, which the Westland District Council had been working on.
McKay said the WCRC had not authorised the release of sewage, only remedial action so the underground system could be completed.
"The recent abatement notice did not authorise any release of sewage, rather required works to be completed so that the discharge was no longer above ground."
Vivek Goel, the former Westland District Council assets manager, is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Westland chief executive Simon Bastion said the council had experienced "significant disposal issues" with the underground system.
It had asked the WCRC for permission to release the "top level" of sewage through the trench, which was agreed to, but the district council took too long to complete it.
He traced the problems back to 2016, when the Waiho River breached its banks and flooded the ponds.
Westland Mayor Bruce Smith.
Bastion said sewage was not discharged into the river, but onto river bed land owned by Westland Property, a council-owned subsidiary.
The council had hired an expert to help decide on a new system that would require a new regional council resource consent, and it had secured Government funding for the project, he said.
"The process for agreeing on a best, practical and affordable outcome for an upgrade to the wastewater treatment system is advancing well."
The missed deadline comes after a tumultuous year for the Westland District Council, including two government investigations centred around the sewerage works at Franz Josef.
In March 2017, a Stuff investigation discovered the council's asset manager, Vivek Goel, had shoulder-tapped a cake decorator in South Auckland to build Franz Josef's new sewage plant at a cost of $7 million.
Goel has since left the council. The investigation is ongoing.
The auditor-general is also investigating the council after Mayor Bruce Smith and long-time councillor Durham Havill announced they were building a $1.3m stopbank next to the river, despite repeated Government and WCRC warnings that stopbanks would not solve the problem.
The stopbank has since been completed and the auditor-general's investigation is continuing.