Media Release: Waikato District Council, 2 September 2013
INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF OVERFLOW AT RAGLAN WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT COMPLETE
An independent review into the overflow of partially treated wastewater at Raglan’s treatment plant is complete with several recommendations made to improve operations.
Waikato District Council has already implemented a number of the recommendations included in the consultant’s report on the June 24 spill and is developing an action plan to ensure the remaining items are completed.
The report shows that around 5000cu m of partially treated waste water, only half of the original amount estimated, entered a tributary of the Raglan Harbour.
A number of factors were found to have contributed to the overflow including the failure of the discharge pumps to start operating and a lack of telemetry alarms in the event of a pump failure.
Waikato District Council General Manager Service Delivery Tim Harty says the investigation has found several areas where improvements need to be made to avoid similar incidents in the future.
“We are extremely disappointed with the findings of this report as it highlights several operational issues from technical to operator error which contributed to the event.”
“A number of these issues have already been addressed, including fast tracking a planned upgrade of our monitoring system, and we are committed to implementing the other recommendations as quickly as possible.”
Waikato Regional Council has completed an initial site investigation and is continuing their investigation into the overflow.