Councils head to court over spill

A Northland Regional Council intention to prosecute the Far North District Council for two raw sewage spills at Waitangi earlier this year has "appalled" the district council.

Around 2750cu m of untreated sewage spilled into the Waitangi River, estuary, wetlands and farmland during two separate pipeline failures along the 7km Waitangi-Paihia line in February and April.

The biggest spill, of 2500cu m, discharged undetected onto land for two days because an alarm system did not work.

The spills resulted in warnings against swimming or taking shellfish in the area.

Far North council chief executive Clive Manley said he could not imagine what the regional council expected to gain from a prosecution.

Far North Mayor Yvonne Sharp described the decision to prosecute as "incomprehensible".

Regional council monitoring manager Tony Phipps said a decision on a prosecution was unlikely before next week and papers had not yet been filed in court. "They [district council] were warned that it was likely we would prosecute. That was our intention but details of the charges have not been finalised."

Mr Phipps said charges, under the Resource Management Act, would likely be laid against the district council, which owned the pipeline, and its contractor who maintained and operated the line. "The district council has to comply with the law like everyone else. They were given previous warnings to avoid discharges.

"It was raw sewage discharged into a sensitive environment and what happened appears to be gross negligence by operators of the [sewerage] scheme," Mr Phipps said.

Mrs Sharp said the two councils were supposed to be working together for the benefit of the region and its environment. "All this prosecution will do is take ratepayer money out of the region to spend on legal advice in Auckland in pursuit of an outcome that can only be pointless."

She said if the regional council was intending to teach the Far North council a lesson, it was one that it had already learned.

The regional council move comes only days after the Far North council let a $5.7 million tender for replacement of the entire pipeline from the Waitangi pumping station to the Paihia wastewater treatment plant.

Mr Manley said the earlier pipe failures were accidental and his council had responded to both regional council and Northland health board advice at the time of the breaks.