Collaborative process drives wastewater discharge improvements

The Otago Regional Council (ORC) is looking back on a decade of helping resource consent holders dramatically improve the quality of their wastewater discharges.

A paper presented by ORC director resource management Selva Selvarajah to the regulatory committee today summarised the council’s wastewater discharge resource consent methods and activity over the last decade.

ORC chairman Stephen Woodhead said the Resource Management Act, enacted in 1991, was the catalyst for an increased council focus on wastewater discharges (also known as point source discharges) coming from single sources such as factory pipes.

However, despite this and the good progress made in the decade after the act was passed, there were still instances where the quality of municipal and industrial wastewater discharges was poor, Cr Woodhead said.

“The treatment of these discharges was sub-standard, which increased their potential to harm the environment,” he said.

As a result, ORC has focused more in the last 10 years on a collaborative effects-based approach to discharges from municipal and industrial premises.

ORC regulatory committee chairman Bryan Scott said this involved developing a number of principles aimed at making the consent processes sound and constructive.

“These principles provide a basis for good environmental outcomes from the consenting process going into the future,” Cr Scott said.

ORC staff have spent considerable time with consent applicants discussing more efficient discharge options before they filed their application, with a view to solving problems that could undermine the standards of water discharge ORC was seeking.

“This has invariably given applicants a better understanding of council policies, and made for a far more productive process than might otherwise be the case,” Cr Woodhead said.

Cr Woodhead said ORC had also incentivised applicants to invest in substantial improvements in their discharge quality by offering 35-year terms for consents. Applications with excellent discharge quality could be processed as non-notified since the adverse effects in such cases were minor.

ORC staff had worked closely with several Otago industries to help them with consents for building state-of-the-art water treatment plants that discharged high quality water back into the river.

“The principle of holding open and without prejudice discussions during the application process has led to several cases where industrial wastewater has been restored to drinkable quality,” Cr Woodhead said.

Reasonable transition periods (two to four years) had been granted to allow applicants to make the transition from an existing discharge to commissioning an acceptable upgrade. This was aimed at allowing them to meet water quality standards that would stand the environment in good stead over many years.

Cr Woodhead said applicants had responded positively in many cases to this approach. They had invested substantial sums to upgrade their premises, improving discharge quality. In some instances, these investments greatly exceeded the minimum threshold for compliance.

Creating an environment where parties had options to negotiate and agree on practical means for dealing with discharge quality issues removed the potential of enforcement action, he said.

“This is a win-win for ratepayers and industries and is an example of how the council’s collaborative approach has resulted in investment that benefits the economy and the environment,” Cr Woodhead said.