City beaches still polluted

Dunedin City Council have been aware for a long time the inefficiency of the old sewerage pipes to cope with days of increased volume run-off from the stormwater pipes. Some downfalls cause flooding in areas of south Dunedin, and around Queens high school, where raw sewage is lying in the streetsw mixed with the overflowed stormwater from drains.
So I am not suprised at all to see this report in the ODT today.
Councils top priorities of city maintenance are roads, sewage, stormwater, and rubbish. Of late there have been many other empire building activities gaining the ratepayers dollars, sucking the cash away from the much needed upgrading of these core services.
DCC Storm and wastewater info

UPDATE 15th october 2009
from the ODT

Dairy farms first, DCC next read more here

"An admission they are polluting is a major first step."
"The city has extremely old stormwater drains."
"day is coming where rainwater has to stop mixing with poos".

The city council had a five-year short-term consent for discharges to enable it to come up with a new strategy, but it did not yet have consents for stormwater discharges. Cr Gretchen Robertson said the city council had three years left to come up with a "grand scheme" on how to improve the situation.

Beaches Clean Since January 2009

From the Otago Daily Times By David Loughrey on Wed, 26 Aug 2009

Dunedin city beaches have been given a clean bill of health, staying open every day in the seven months since the new outfall pipe was commissioned at Tahuna in January.

The Dunedin City Council is on the verge of deciding what to do with solid waste as part of designing the next phase of its upgrade work, the $74.3 million secondary treatment programme for the Tahuna sewage treatment plant. Council wastewater and stormwater operations team leader Brian Turner said there had been no change since testing started earlier in the year, with the water quality "fine" from St Clair through to Smaills beach.

Even Tomahawk beach, polluted for more than 100 years by the Lawyers Head outfall, had cleaned up quickly, due to the "high energy" coastline. Dr Brian Stewart, of Ryder Consulting, said the water had been tested 128 times since the outfall was commissioned.

Most testing had been done early on, and was now mostly done when weather conditions pushed the plume from the outfall back towards the beaches. The secondary treatment upgrade will including ultraviolet light disinfection, digestion systems and drying techniques at Tahuna.

Mr Turner said the final decision on what to do with about 4.2 tonnes of dried solid waste each day came down to a choice between drying or incineration, a decision he hoped would be made in the next two weeks. "It revolves around what is the most energy efficient. That's the most important thing."

Composting had not worked in Wellington or Rotorua, as councils there had been unable to "get rid of the product". Dried waste could be used on golf courses, where it was mixed with soil and helped trap moisture, while there was the possibility of producing power from burning. Mr Turner said the planned commissioning date for the secondary treatment plant was late 2011.

Upgrade of sewage plant approved

From ODT Website
By Chris Morris on Wed, 22 Apr 2009

"If approved, construction was expected to begin early next year."

Dunedin city councillors have backed plans for the $74.3 million stage two upgrade of Dunedin's secondary sewage treatment facilities despite fresh questions about community consultation.

Councillors at yesterday's infrastructure services committee meeting voted in favour of the preferred "option A", the installation of new secondary treatment systems at the city's Tahuna wastewater plant.

The systems, including ultraviolet (UV) light disinfection, digestion systems and drying techniques, were needed to replace the plant's chlorination disinfection method, which had to cease by September 1, 2011, existing consents stipulate.

read the rest of the article here

Sewage Safe For Now

Anybody noticed and differences in what is seen in the water?

Anti Stadium March - Surfers Invite

Got a text from Tony this arvo, who is organising the voice of Dunedin surfers to march with the rally organised by the 'Stop the Stadium Trust".
Wear your wetsuit for the march, there will be a banner saying something along the lines of

DCC sort your SHIT out first

Leave 12 noon from the Dental school to the Octagon Saturday 31st January
I hope to see as many surfers there as possible who are against public funding for the proposed covered Stadium.
I sure as hell didn't vote for any of the councillors or mayoral candidates who were pro stadium. Interesting that only one councillor who voiced herself as against was voted in.. Teresa Stevenson has all my support, especially up against **** like Fliss Butcher.
We do live in a democracy, and the current council were voted in by Dunedinites, so what to do? Thanks

New Label - Sewage Issues

There have been many reports, debates and issues arising in the last few months over the Sewage Issues related to the Tahuna Outfall and Lawyers head effluent discharges.
I have created a new keyword - Sewage Issues on this blog under "Blog Contents" with articles from newspapers and events as they happen. Today I have included more articles from the ODT which both invite debate and inform.

ODT 26th May 1908

Mon, 26 May 2008

100 Years Ago

The sewage of the city was discharged direct into the Pacific Ocean through the Lawyer's Head tunnels for the first time yesterday.

For some time past, pending the completion of the main tunnel and the branches leading there, the sewage from the Musselburgh pumping station has been discharged on to the beach in the vicinity of Lawyer's Head, making this favourite resort a less desirable locality to visit than it was formerly.

The sands of the beach, however, provided excellent filtration, and the pollution of the waters was not by any means so serious as might be supposed.

With the completion of the tunnelling beneath Lawyer's Head, however, the necessity for the undesirable practice of discharging sewage on to a public place of health resort has been entirely done away with, and the sewage is now discharged direct into the ocean at two points in the rocky facing of Lawyer's Head.

The main tunnel at Lawyer's Head is 860ft 6in in length, and terminates at an air shaft from which two bifurcating 4ft tunnels diverge to the right and left in south-east and south-west directions until the ocean is reached.

The amount of sewage to be discharged daily by means of four hours' pumping is 348,000 cubic feet, equal to 37,000 cubic feet per hours.

Undersea concrete pour achieved

By Allison Rudd on Sat, 18 Oct 2008
It sounds impossible: Take enough concrete to pour the bases of eight family homes, pump it 250m and fill a large hole 9m below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

But contractors working on the Dunedin City Council Tahuna sewage outfall pipe did just that successfully yesterday.

Specialist staff from AAA Concrete Pumping were brought in from Marlborough and Queenstown to pump 190 cubic metres of concrete along the length of the construction pier and into an underwater steel structure.

The resulting concrete block will securely hold in place two outfall pipes - an underground pipe laid from the Tahuna sewage treatment works and a 1km long marine pipe - to enable a short joiner pipe to be placed between them.

It was important to "hold things together", council project manager Brian Turner said yesterday.

"The pipes will join approximately 9m below the surface and 5m below the seabed, so this is the most critical area to get right."

Pumping began at 7am and was finished by 2pm.

The job was the most challenging AAA Concrete Pumping had attempted, administration manager Paula O'Donnell said yesterday.

"The distance was the farthest we have ever done . . . What the guys did takes a lot of skill, but it all went very smoothly."

The $37 million pipe project has been delayed by rough weather, but Mr Turner said pressure testing was expected to take place next month, with the pipe expected to be commissioned in December.

A Basic Service

From the Otago Daily Times - Friday 23rd January 2009
Editorial

It is not surprising the pollution of premier Dunedin beaches St Kilda and St Clair causes such a big stink. The fouling makes the beaches unusable under certain conditions, and is an appalling local and national advertisement. Dunedin, with its wildlife, natural beauty, and history, cannot even keep its own effluent from its own front door step.

All that is about to change because commissioning is taking place of the $37 million, 1.1km outfall from Tahuna. While a $67 million secondary treatment plant is to follow, the outfall alone is expected to make a big difference to the immediate problems.

Dunedin's waste from the main metropolitan area at present passes through the Tahuna plant, where screening takes place. It then, still with plenty of pathogens on board, discharges from Lawyers Head. With unfavourable winds and seas the plume of pollution washes back along the beaches, an event that happens far too often, especially in the summer months.

Even worse, every few years fats accumulated in the system are flushed out and can thickly coat the sand when heavy rains follow a long dry spell and the sea flows the "wrong" way.

The "primary" treated effluent (about 46 million litres a day) is now beginning to flow through the new outfall pipe and diffuse and disperse into reasonably deep (20m to 25m) water.

Given prevailing currents, any remaining material should drift northeast rather than southwest back on to the beaches. Council staff, the people of Dunedin and especially surfers and swimmers will certainly be hoping that this is so.

In the meantime, the council will be testing the effectiveness of the dispersal in the sea and on the shoreline before proceeding to the next stage to chlorinate the effluent.

The outfall had been due for completion late in 2007 and, after weather and technical difficulties, its commissioning is not before time.

Many in the council had believed that the outfall and the planned level of treatment should be enough. The dumping of sewage after only primary treatment into the ocean at any distance, however, arouses much concern and opposition.

For its part, the Otago Regional Council, in its resource consent role, insisted on secondary treatment. The city, therefore, had no choice but to push ahead with this. Planning is under way, the new plant will also be at Tahuna, and completion is scheduled for September 2011. The advanced treatment will squeeze more sludge from the sewage and treat it with ultraviolet rays. Ideally, the sewage would be treated to far higher levels - and we would be happy to drink the results. That, though, would incur vast expense, well beyond the capabilities of a small city like Dunedin. As it is, the cost of the new scheme per household already exceeds that estimated for the Otago Stadium.

Householders in an average (mean) property in Dunedin are, according to council estimates - and with about 9% interest being charged - expected to be faced with an extra $66 a year over a 20-year loan for the council's share of stadium capital costs. That would fall to about $57 for the householders in a median-value (the middle of the range) property. The most expensive properties would pay much more and the cheapest less. Yet the combined effect on the rates of the new sewage outfall and plant capital costs over a 20-year loan (also at 9% interest, although this shows signs of falling considerably) would be about $85 a household a year. Unlike the stadium costs, drainage and sewage would not be combined with council company profits and losses, denying the opportunity for tax savings. Sewerage costs also differ in they they are collected as fixed charges for each house (rather than on capital value), meaning homes all pay the same.

The cost of the pipeline and the secondary treatment could then rise above $100 a year once all the extra yearly operating costs are taken into account. The stadium figures also exclude any operating losses the stadium might make and which ratepayers, one way or another, might be forced to bear. There remains, too, a potentially costly sting in the tail of secondary treatment, for work is still proceeding on the most effective, economic and environmentally acceptable way of dealing with all the extra "sludge" which will be produced. Burning it - a common solution - has obvious disadvantages; fertiliser production options have severe drawbacks; and dumping is unsatisfactory.

Dunedin is long overdue in dealing to its disgraceful beach pollution, and few should begrudge what must be seen as a heavy impost to provide a basic and essential service.

No extra testing of water at beaches

From the Otago Daily Times
By Chris Morris on Tue, 20 Jan 2009

There are no plans to increase the frequency of water quality tests at Dunedin's beaches despite concerns swimmers could - in extreme circumstances - risk contracting hepatitis A, officials say.

• Poll: Should cleaning up our beaches be the top priority for the DCC?

Public Health South medical officer of health Dr Marion Poore spoke to the manager of Surf Life Saving Otago yesterday after concerns were raised some club members were falling ill after swimming at St Kilda and St Clair beaches. The illnesses are blamed on pollution coming from the Lawyers Head sewage outfall pipe, with some surf club members blaming the Dunedin City Council for not confirming high bacteria levels until 24 hours after samples are taken.

The beaches were closed again on Sunday, but reopened yesterday after the latest test results were found to be "satisfactory". Yesterday, Dr Poore acknowledged the test results were always "24 hours behind the event". "We would love to see instantaneous results . . .The problem is it takes time to do the test and grow the organism, and count the number, and get an idea of the level of risk," she said.

Increasing the testing cycle was an option when a threat to public health was established, but was not being discussed in this case, she said. "That would be costly and the current recommendation is testing once a week. The DCC [Dunedin City Council] tests every 24 hours. "I think 24-hour monitoring is sufficient."

DCC city environment general manager Tony Avery said there were no plans to step up monitoring as it was expected the commissioning of the new 1.1km Tahuna pipeline this week would address the issue. He also questioned whether the surf life-savers' illnesses were linked to the pollution plume from Lawyers Head, suggesting other contagions in the water could be to blame.

Yesterday morning, the switch was flicked to activate the new outfall pipe for the first time. The $37 million scheme involves the 1.1km pipe outfall, as well as a new pump station, chlorination and odour-control facilities at the Tahuna plant. The work - the first of a two-stage upgrade of the plant - began in late 2006, including drilling of a 1500mm underground tunnel from Tahuna out to sea using a tunnel-boring machine. Stage two - expected to be completed sometime in 2011 - involves construction of a $67 million secondary treatment plant, also at the Tahuna site.

Yesterday, the pump station began driving treated sewage down the pipe to mix and dilute with the sea water, while staff conducted a series of flow tests to check its operation as part of the commissioning process. The testing is expected to continue until tomorrow when the plant will be shut down for final adjustments, before becoming fully operational from next week. Underwater and shoreline monitoring - including water quality tests and checks on shellfish - will also be carried out. "Once we get everything stabilised we will then be looking at what happens environmentally and how well the system is diffusing and dispersing the waste water," said the project manager, Brian Turner.

Stage one was originally scheduled for commissioning in December 2007.

Ocean Beach Spews more

Two front page articles in two months. Probably another 4-5 years until a secondary sewage treatment plant is in operation. More and more people are falling ill with infections and sickness from raw sewage pumped from lawyers head. I have my fingers crossed that the 67 million is still available and enough to remedy this appalling situation once and for all. Definately a better monitoring system is needed.. Any suggestions?

‘Star' accused of ‘whipping up waves'

From the Otago Daily Times Thu, 18 Dec 2008
LETTER TO THE EDITOR - from Richard Walls
[The Star's] front-page report ‘‘Surfers sick of sewage stall'' (December 11, 2008) is strangely detached from reality. The surfboard to which it tenuously hangs relates to ‘‘recent'' comments attributed to me in the Otago Daily Times.

• Surfers sick of stalling over sewage

In fact, those comments by me were already several weeks old by the time [reporter] Michelle McCullough contacted me - more than two weeks ago.

The background to them was, of course, the collapse of world financial markets, the ongoing banking crisis and how this might affect the ongoing funding of the DCC's programme of major capital projects, all of which are funded by loan.

My comments were essentially an addendum to the wider overview on the council's position in the same ODT report by DCC finance and corporate general manager Athol Stephens.

At that point, the position of financial markets going forward was not clear. That, as I informed Michelle, remained largely unchanged several weeks later but it had certainly not deteriorated. The same situation applies today, indeed it may be improved somewhat.

The only question posed by your reporter - in what was a very, very brief discussion - was a simple one in relation to the planned installation of secondary treatment at Tahuna. In response, I said (the elected arm of) council had not considered any change to its projected major capital programme, nor did it seem likely to have to.

I added that any reprioritisation of major capital projects would therefore occur when the council enters into its Annual Plan/Community Plan process next year (2009). In plain-speak, its normal budgeting round.

That remains the position.

How your front page story can sidestep those realities and set out to try and ‘‘whip up some waves'' is, to put it kindly, naive.

The reality is that if the market becomes tight and/or interest rates make borrowing too expensive, then council would need to determine what capital projects could be afforded. In short, re-prioritise its planned spending. More detailed but not much different to what every family has to do when considering taking out (say) a mortgage to buy a house.

In the extreme and unlikely event that the loan market totally collapsed or dried up, there would be no funding for any capital projects at all.
Those that would be affected are listed in council's current Annual Plan 2008-09 which is available in printed form or easily looked up on the DCC website.

The secondary treatment plant at Tahuna - budgeted to cost around $70 million - is but one. Like it or not, in such circumstances it cannot be excluded from consideration.

Council simply does not make such decisions on the basis of how one group (in this case, surfers) might be affected but on the benefits to the wider community.

Nor are such decisions made in isolation nor with haste.

I thank Graham Carse for correctly referencing the position I took on the matter of sewage treatment in 1991 during my term as Mayor. He overlooks however, that the detailed and comprehensive upgrade programme then agreed to, planned over 15+ years and costing well over $200 million has largely been implemented.

Effluent discharge into Otago Harbour has ceased with the closure of treatment plants at Sawyers Bay, Burkes and Grassy Point and treatment transferred to Tahuna plant.

Similarly the discharge of effluent from the Mosgiel Plant into the Silverstream/Taieri now goes out through the Green Island Treatment Plant which, amongst other upgrading, has secondary treatment.

The new outfall off the beach at Tahuna replacing the present outfall in the cliff-face at Lawyer's Head is near completion.

It was the use of that outfall and the virtually raw sewage it discharged, until the primary treatment at Tahuna itself was upgraded in the past 20 years or so, that was largely the cause of Tomahawk being closed to bathing etc from the mid-1940s. Hardly recent!

The proposed secondary treatment at Tahuna is the last stage in the upgrade programme referred to. I take some pride in what was agreed to and started on ‘‘my watch'', not because of anything I personally did, but because of what was implemented by the council I was privileged to lead - with wide community support -and which has been carried on by its successors, including the present one.

- Richard Walls Dunedin City Council
Finance and Strategy chair
[Abridged - Ed]

Solution to pollution not dilution - experts

From the ODT
By Michelle McCullough on Thu, 18 Dec 2008

To promote Dunedin as the wildlife capital of New Zealand is ridiculous, given the city's sewage-contaminated beaches, two wildlife experts say.

Former Dunedin penguin researcher John Darby, who now lives in Wanaka, is concerned the second stage of the Tahuna Waste Water Treatment Plant upgrade will still not be good enough when it comes to the area's wildlife.

‘‘The proposal, even with the extended outfall, is to pour poorly treated waste out to sea and, given the vagaries of tides and currents offshore of Otago Peninsula, I am far from convinced that this resolves much by way of disease entities and contamination of the marine ecosystem,'' Mr Darby told The Star this week. ‘‘From a commercial point of view, it is ridiculous to be promoting Dunedin as the wildlife capital of New Zealand and at the same time closing beaches and restricting shellfish harvesting because of sewagecontaminated beaches.''

Former vice-president of Protect Our Ocean (Poo) Andrew Brown agrees. ‘‘If we want to continue to market ourselves as the wildlife capital of New Zealand we need to sort it out. It's an embarrassment,'' Mr Brown said. ‘‘Dunedin exists on thirdworld treatment facilities and it's been a city disgrace for more than 100 years.''

Both men echoed the concerns of surfers raised in last week's Star, in reaction to the possibility the second stage of the plant upgrade might have to be deferred because of the global economic climate. The possibility had been raised in earlier comments made by Dunedin city councillor Richard Walls.

Cr Walls did not wish to comment further when contacted yesterday, but earlier provided a response to The Star's front page article last week (see Page 5).

Mr Darby was ‘‘appalled'' there was any suggestion that the commissioning of the new outfall should be delayed any further, ‘‘nor am I happy that the DCC still considers that the solution to pollution is dilution,'' Mr Darby said. Mr Brown also fears the council will opt for chlorine disinfection instead of the secondary treatment system in order to meet the biological guidelines set down by the Otago Regional Council.

Former Poo member Dr Marc Schallenberg agrees that chlorine disinfection, which is banned overseas, would be unsatisfactory. ‘‘Adding an environmentally damaging chemical to sewage is no longer an acceptable way to treat waste, especially if it's going to be discharged to an ecosystem,'' Dr Schallenberg said. When contacted by The Star, DCC infrastructure services committee deputy chairman Bill Acklin said the council would receive a report on February 2 outlining recommendations for secondary treatment options.

With the outfall pipe expected to be operational in January, Cr Acklin saw no reason why the second stage of the upgrade would not go ahead. ‘‘It's now time to get into treatment and I don't see why it would be deferred. The funding is already in the budget, and the price is what has been budgeted for.'' Cr Acklin was unaware whether the use of chlorine was an option but predicted the second stage of the Tahuna upgrade would be modelled on the Green Island Wastewater Treatment plant.

Tahuna Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade project manager Brian Turner said the council had never considered dilution of wastewater as a secondary treatment option. ‘‘We have never looked at diluting the waste because all discharges get diluted anyway.'' Mr Turner is adamant chlorine disinfection will not be an option for the secondary treatment plant.

Department of Conservation (Doc) spokesperson Liz Sherwood said there was no hard evidence to back up claims of wildlife experts that current waste discharge from the Lawyers Head outfall was having negative impacts on costal Otago wildlife. ‘‘Doc has no evidence that the Tahuna discharge is having an adverse effect on indigenous wildlife, including yellow-eyed penguins,'' Ms Sherwood said. ‘‘The department supports DCC's moves toward secondary treatment of human waste, which would greatly minimise the risk of human/wildlife disease transmission.''

This SUCKS

o

Last month..

I would like to see the new 'dispersion modelling' predictions.. and where they think the sewerage will be dispersed to.
We are not only talking about the future health of humans surfing along the harbour coast, but the health of the wildlife. Nearly all of the yellow eyed penguin chicks have died this season.. carcasses have sent for testing, but it is believed to be due to renal failure. And there have been marked decreases in the chicks of other species.
The city prides its self on clean greem wildlife tourist destination, but the truth behind the facade is pretty sick.
AND...
from what I understand the council needs to prioritise and get back tothe grass roots of supplying services to the city such as roading, drainage and sewerage treatment.. not glass domes, new buildings and a covered stadium
would you support..
Rugby over surfing?
entertainment over health?
discuss..

Rainfall effect on sewage of concern

Sat, 25 Oct 2008
By Rebecca Fox on Sat, 25 Oct 2008

News: Dunedin

Having sewage flowing into Dunedin waterway's during heavy rainfall is unsatisfactory, says the Otago Regional Council.

During the July 31-August 1 heavy rainfall, Dunedin City Council's foul sewer systems failed at Marne St, Company Bay and Sawyers Bay pumping stations and untreated effluent was diverted from the Mosgiel Wastewater Treatment Plant directly into the Silverstream.

Regional council resource management director Selva Selvarajah said council staff were investigating the failures and had requested an explanation from the city council as to why it occurred and the source of problems. "It is not satisfactory." A report to the biosecurity and compliance committee meeting recently said the response from the city council was that the discharges were unfortunate, but unavoidable, and the West and East Harbour foul sewer lines had been designed in accordance with best practice.

Information from the city council suggested the primary cause of the discharges was stormwater infiltration into the foul sewer system because of highly saturated soils at the time due to an unusually wet month, the report said. Despite any design precautions, certain weather conditions would cause a system to overload and result in un-treated or partially-treated sewage flowing into a waterway.

Dr Selvarajah said the July event was not an extreme event compared to other high rainfall periods, so it was important to look at the source of the problem to see how and why the water was getting into the system, and remedy the problem. "There may not be an easy solution for it." Enforcement action would not be considered until additional information from the city council was available and the investigation was complete, he said.

City council waste services manager John Mackie said it was not an uncommon problem, and was one which many cities experienced during high flow events. However, the city council was looking at the issues, having just completed the first stage of a project looking at waste, storm and potable water networks in the city. Stage one, costing $1.4 million, included monitoring rainfall during winter, and measuring flows and water quality in both waste and stormwater systems.

"We are profiling the entire water cycle of the urban catchment of Dunedin." A funding request for stage 2 would go to the council's long-term council community plan and include detailed analysis and assessment of the condition of the city's old pipes, he said. In the meantime, work had begun in South Dunedin to re-line some of the old pipes to prevent groundwater getting into the sewerage system, and a close eye was being kept on areas of concern in Mosgiel and South Dunedin.

A strategy covering the future of the three water systems, also taking into consideration climate change issues such as sea level rise, more intense rainfall and storm surge, was expected by October 2009.

muddy waters

One shot from the weekend. Water runoff from the surrounding hillsides emptying to the sea, tinted green with vegetation and large animal excretion. All along the south coast the sea water has been brown and full of land matter. Raw sewerage had been pumped out Lawyers head for a few days last week with the rain, and the beaches were closed.

A Look at the Pipe

A few angles of the pipe at St Kilda, constructed to guide the new sewage pipes out to sea.

Result Unsatisfactory

A warning that the beaches are unsafe for surfing and swimming
is always a day late, at best.

Check out the DCC website here for up-to-date water test results

What are we being advised not to surf and swim?
Because of the presence of fecal contaminants in the water, swept along the coast from sewerage pumped out off the end of Lawyers Head from the Tahuna Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP).
-When there is a North-ish swell, the sewerage is washed straight back into shore to St Kilda, Middles and St Clair and Seconds beaches too.
The day the sign goes up is actually 24 hours after the contaminated water is collected to be taken away for testing.
Why the delay? because it takes 24 hours for the contaminants to grow enough of a culture to verify if it is present.
What do they test for?
Enterococci, because this bacteria lives the longest in Salt water, and is the most likely contaminant to be a health risk for swimmers and surfers.

"This is because the Lawyers Head outfall offers only minimal dilution compared to the greater level of dilution that occurs with a properly constructed outfall, such as the one at Green Island." - DCC

HISTORY of the Lawyers Head wastewater outlet.
It was commissioned in 1908. This was a huge improvement from previous methods of wastewater disposal which was dispersing the waste into the upper Otago Harbour. So for the last 100 years almost raw sewerage has been pumped on to the beaches at Tomahawk, and Smails beaches.

The Tahuna Wastewater Treatment Plant
This facility was constructed in 1981. Since then the plant has undergone a number of improvements especially the installation of odour control biofilters. In the short term chlorination has been chosen as the best means of disinfection.

In the longer term, the Tahuna WWTP itself will be upgraded to UV treatment. This will occur by September 2011. According to the DCC "In-depth risk analysis, using computer modeling, has shown that installing an outfall at 1100 metres off the coast, discharging chlorinated effluent, would effectively give the coastline a clean bill of health in terms of indicator bacteria for swimming and shellfish gathering."

Below: application for consent through the Otago Regional Council to discharge sewerage from Lawyers Head.

Pier dismantling

Above: the pier constructed to transport the pipe segments out to sea is in the process of being dismantled. More of John Wilson Ocean Drive has been opened to the public, and the area is becoming busy again. End of January 2008 the whole drive should be open again.
Below: After work today at the esplanade and got some shots as the sun came out from behind the clouds, didn't stay too long, wind was cold, and was eager to visit Helenas new baby.

Waldronville Sandmining and Sewerage

Above and below.. the 'Emergency Outfall' for the Green Island sewerage treatment plant.
Looks like the sand has been recently removed from in front of the outfall area which discharges straight on to the beach.

The Green Island Sewerage treatment plant was up-graded to secondary treatment with UV disinfection and the marine outfall was extended out in the year 2000 to 850m offshore at Waldronville. This emergency outfall pipe still appears to operate.
As this is a restricted coastal activity a resource consent permit is required to discharge up to 103680 m3/day of treated effluent to the Pacific Ocean. This is via the newer 850m Waldronville sewerage outfall pipe.
Below the Dunedin Gun Club and the Dunedin Pistol Club operate on the reserve area at Waldronville, Here a Permit for sand mining is in operation, the scar is easily visible at the back of the firing range.

Also ( left below) there is another site for sand mining a short walk to the right of the range behind the pistol firing range. (right below) the above pit from another angle.

Below, nice to see a planting programme taking place in the dunes beyond the gun club.

High bacteria levels close Dunedin beaches

High bacteria levels close Dunedin beaches
NZPA | Thursday, 29 March 2007

Increased levels of harmful bacteria have forced the closure of three popular Dunedin surfing beaches.
Dunedin City Council said today water quality tests showed elevated bacteria levels at St Kilda, St Clair and Middle beaches.
The council's environmental health team and Public Health South had recommended against swimming, surfing or paddling until further notice.
Strong winds and sea currents are regularly blamed for sweeping a sewage plume towards shore from an outfall at Lawyer's Head on the south coast of the Otago Peninsula at the eastern end of St Kilda

Beach.Below: Arial pic of Lawyers head spilling forth sewage