Watercare to defy ban on bio-solid dumping

Mangere Maori are preparing to fight Auckland's wastewater company over its plans to defy two of its council shareholders and dump more than four million cubic metres of treated waste on an island sacred to them.

Independent commissioners appointed by Manukau City and Auckland Regional Councils had rejected Watercare Service's bid to put biosolids on Puketutu in the Manukau Harbour, saying it was not a good way to fix the quarry-damaged island.

They said dumping treated human waste on a waahi tapu, or sacred place, would have a major effect on Maori cultural values.

But Watercare has decided to go ahead with the plan, using a power it has under the Resource Management Act to overrule Manukau City's finding that the whole island was waahi tapu.

The island is marked as a waahi tapu in the Manukau district plan, and many Maori groups oppose putting sewage there.

The Makaurau Marae Maori Trust this week appealed against Watercare's decision to the Environment Court, saying it was not for a wastewater company to decide if the island was sacred.

It said only the tangata whenua - in this case the marae group - could decide whether to lessen the island's waahi tapu status.

Watercare says the treated waste is valuable and it would make the island better by rehabilitating parts gouged out by quarrying since the 1950s.

It wants to dump the solid waste - containing less than 10 per cent treated human waste - on the island as fill, slowly rebuilding the original terrain lines obliterated during the quarrying.

Asked yesterday whether Watercare should be making decisions about the extent of a waahi tapu, acting chief executive Gary Swift replied in a written statement that: "These are all issues that we shall now be working through with the parties who have appealed the decision.

"We maintain it is in the best interests of all Auckland water users that we continue to advance this case."

The RMA provision - which the Government has indicated it would like to scrap - lets some infrastructure companies wield power over land use to make decisions on their own projects and reject council recommendations.

Puketutu Island was inhabited by Maori for up to 300 years up to the 18th century and at least 47 archaeological sites have been identified.

Watercare has also challenged the decision by the Auckland Regional Council - which unlike Manukau had the power to say no to the project - to reject permission for discharges, stormwater diversion, the taking of groundwater and the undertaking of 12 million cubic metres of earthworks while rebuilding the island.

The ARC/Manukau City Council consents panel said the dumping of waste would leave the island in a worse state and have "irreversible and adverse effects" on local Maori.

Watercare runs the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant near Puketutu.