September 2008:
Public meeting held to discuss Whitianga wastewater disposal options. Download the presentation from the meeting here or to have your say download a feedback form.
August 2008:
Landscaping is complete immediately outside the new Tairua-Pauanui Wastewater Treatment Plant. This landscaping will tie in with a Pauanui entrance way design concept received by the Policy & Planning Committee and Tairua-Pauanui Community Board.
August 2008:
Whitianga ratepayers are now flushing their wastewater into a brand new $18 million treatment plant.
The cost of dealing with our wastewater as a district has added $313 to the wastewater charge on every dwelling hooked up to a council sewerage system – accounting for $938 of the rates bill.
Like the new plant servicing Tairua and Pauanui, the Whitianga plant is producing some of the highest quality wastewater in the country but discharging it according to a resource consent inherited from the old wastewater pond system.
We have to apply for a new resource consent in 2010 and residents are being asked to help the council decide what is the best way to dispose of this treated wastewater.
Click here for the latest brochure outlining disposal options for treated wastewater from the new Whitianga plant (August 2008)
March 2008:
Click here for an information brochure on the new Tairua-Pauanui Wastewater Treatment Plant (March 2008)
December 2007:
Click here for the New Year Progress Report (December 2007)
July 2008:
Landscaping has been completed around the exterior of the new Tairua-Pauanui Wastewater Treatment Plant in a theme that reflects the landscaping plan for the entrance to the township.
May 2008:
Regional council Environment Waikato has given consent for a four month trial by Thames-Coromandel District Council to make high-grade compost out of treated sludge from the new Tairua-Pauanui Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The council is negotiating with a compost plant supplier and plans to carry out the trial at the Tairua Refuse Transfer station. The aim is to create the highest quality grade Aa compost available by combining sludge with the district’s green waste.
March 2008:
Groovy UV lights, odour-eating balls…where else can this be? The new Tairua-Pauanui wastewater treatment plant of course!
An Open Day is being held at the new plant on Easter weekend so that those interested can see how it all works. Almost 100 people have pre-booked to attend the Open Day.
February 2008:
The Thames-Coromandel District Council has approved a draft Annual Plan for 2008/09 which forecasts an average rates rise of 12.17 per cent for ratepayers.
The district wastewater charge is the main driver of the rates increase, going up to $938 per urban property. This is an increase of $314 from last year.
Commented Mayor Philippa Barriball: "The main driver of the increase is the wastewater charge and the debt associated with our investment in three new wastewater treatment plants which will all be operating by March next year. It is the district’s urban ratepayers who are using our wastewater systems and funding the new plants,” she says. “Upgrading key infrastructure to protect our environment is a number one priority for this council.”
January 2008
The Coromandel Peninsula’s holiday period population peaked this season at around 135,000 on New Year’s Eve, down on the 2003/04 figure of 142,000. The usually resident population is 26,000.
TCDC surveyed its peak population during the holiday peak from December 26, 2007 until January 6, 2008 using door-to-door surveyors to reach 11 per cent of local households with a questionnaire and commercial accommodation figures, a campground survey, traffic counts and sewage, water and rubbish and recycling data to collate the population totals.
Earthworks started at Whangamata. Sequential Batch Reactor tanks being installed at the other two sites. Construction is most advanced at Tairua-Pauanui with the plant due to open by the end of the year.
Council lifts moratorium on building consents in Tairua-Pauanui.