Waipā District Council awards largest contract package yet

Dawn Inglis and Council's water services manager Martin Mould on site at the existing wastewater treatment plant in Cambridge. Contracts for a replacement plant have now been let. Photo / Supplied

Waipā District Council has committed to its biggest contract package — more than $86 million — for the building of a brand-new wastewater treatment plant for Cambridge.

The plant will receive, treat and discharge wastewater from Cambridge, Leamington, Hautapu and Karāpiro Domain.

It will replace the plant at Matos Segedin Drive in Cambridge west that has been operational since the late 1970s but will struggle to meet increasingly stringent environmental expectations.

Group manager service delivery Dawn Inglis said the new plant will cope with Cambridge’s fast-growing population and also meet much-higher environmental standards and commitments to the Waikato River.

“Our existing plant receives wastewater, treats it and then discharges it to land before the water travels to the Waikato River as groundwater. While this form of treatment has been acceptable in the past, environmental standards are now much higher,” said Dawn.

“We also have higher aspirations, and legal obligations to the health of the Waikato River. The new plant will treat wastewater to a very, very high standard using specialised membrane bioreactor technology. It will be one of the most advanced plants in New Zealand and something to be proud of.”

A resource consent application was formally lodged with the Waikato Regional Council for the new plant before Christmas and is now being publicly notified.

In the meantime, based on the consent being granted, contracts have been let for:

• specialist inlet works equipment design, manufacture, delivery and commissioning and staff training (to Spirac Pty Ltd)
• the supply and commissioning of membranes and peripheral equipment (to Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions), and
• plant construction (to Spartan Construction).

In total, the three contracts are valued at just over $86 million, from a total plant budget of about $100 million.

Dawn said the new plant will look entirely different to the one that exists now, taking up just one-third of the footprint on the 37ha site near the Waikato River.

Unused land on the site that is not required for the new plant will be remediated and put to other use.

Biosolids will be taken off site for reuse as compost via a third party.

The new plant will include its own solar farm to generate enough energy to power the plant during the day.

Work on designing a new plant to service Cambridge began in 2021. From the outset, council has worked alongside a Kaitiaki Advisory Group plus a community group to ensure community and mana whenua expectations are met.

Early construction work is expected to begin in April 2023, with works completed and the new plant up and running by June 2026.

Dawn said construction of the plant aligns with work undertaken jointly by Hamilton City Council, Waikato District Council, Waipā District Council and tangata whenua on developing a detailed business case for future wastewater solutions across the Waikato sub-region.

That work has already identified the need to upgrade the wastewater plant at Te Awamutu.

Work on an upgrade for the Te Awamutu plant is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2035.

For more information, head to tinyurl.com/cwastewater.