Long Term Planning for our Sewerage System
Wednesday 28 September 2011, 2:20PM
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Council provides a sewerage system for the Stratford community, and the customer base ranges from individual houses to commercial and industrial premises with trade waste. Other ratepayers within our district have their own individual on site septic tanks.
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Council Plant |
Customers
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Stratford
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2,378
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Council has over the last few years made improvements to its sewerage system. The oxidation ponds have been emptied of sludge which is a major task and wont have to be performed again for approximately 30 years. We have also installed four aerators which help to activate the required bacterial reactions and we have introduced prescreening. Previous problems the Council had with odour and algae have not reoccurred.
Although these improvements have been made, we also have been working with the Regional Council to monitor the quality of the outfall into the Patea River as our 25 year resource consent expires in June 2013.The monitoring programme will highlight any impact on the downstream river environment that may be caused through the nutrients released. In our previous long term planning we have made provision for $400,000 over the next two years to upgrade the effluent system. Any further projects and costs that will come out of this monitoring program are then likely to occur in the medium term between 4 to 10 years.
Water and sewer is our core infrastructure and any large expenditure in this area will be funded by way of a loan to reduce the impact to our ratepayers who are connected to the systems.