Mayor to quiz staff on new QLDC sewage cover up revelations

Mayor John Glover has told Crux that new details around the QLDC’s handling of the Queenstown sewage crisis “raise a number of potentially serious issues.”

He adds:

“Whilst I clearly cannot speak to the actions of Veolia, their staff or subcontractors, as Mayor I do need to be satisfied that QLDC has followed due process around the procurement, oversight, authorisation and consenting for the bund wall that was constructed at the Shotover Wastewater treatment Plant.”

“Accordingly I have put together a series of questions for staff to answer (I am mindful that some are on annual leave) to help me consider the issues raised and to respond to them.”

Crux has discovered that a former senior Veolia employee submitted a whistleblower report to the French company’s head office in Paris in March 2024. We understand the report went to Veolia’s head office risk committee and then the decision was somehow lost or fudged to the extent that no action was taken.

The whistleblower report related to the hiring of local Queenstown construction company Beaver in March 2024 to construct an $800,000 illegal earth wall around the Shotover sewage plant’s failed dispersal field. The wall was not designed, consented, funded or engineered. It collapsed within weeks releasing highly toxic sewage into a nearby recreational reserve and the protected Kawarau River.

Crux has also learned that former QLDC manager Marcus Warren ordered the work within days of moving from the council to Veolia as their new local senior manager. Beaver was run by a friend of Warren, Garth Lawrence - the son in law of Skyline Enterprises co-founder Grant Hensman. Mr Hensman is also part owner of Scope Resources Ltd. The company is paid up to $8 million a year for managing QLDC’s landfill site and the company is managed by the husband of former QLDC mayor Vanessa Van Uden, Peter Laurenson.

Crux has also learned that the QLDC water services contract manager at the time of the Beaver contract subsequently left the QLDC in July 2024 and then joined Veolia in October 2025 after some time overseas. The manager, who Crux has decided not to name, says he left QLDC for personal and family reasons.

QLDC refused to answer Crux questions last year about the funding of the wall before admitting that Infrastructure Manager Tony Avery approved the cost - but council would not comment on why the wall collapsed, why procurement rules appear to have been broken or why the Otago Regional Council was not informed - or why Resource Consent was not applied for.

The failure of the wall was followed by the illegal installation of a large pipe that discharged partially treated sewage into the park and Kawarau River 24 hours a day for almost 12 months (see our video below).

Mr Warren resigned from his Veolia role late last year, with immediate effect, for what are understood to be family reasons

To add to an emerging picture of QLDC appearing to turn a blind eye to large scale failures at the Shotover plant since at least 2021, in order to allow continued housing and property development, an extraordinary amount of detail is starting to appear in connection with a collection of wastewater consultants, some of whom have been paid millions of dollars, to advise on running the plant.

In addition to the designers of the failed dispersal field who have not been held to account, BECA produced a report around 2023 that suggested the plant had failed beyond repair while QLDC has since hired GHD who so far have been paid around $1.8 million for advice on possible fixes. Plus Crux has learned of a wastewater engineer, Paul Haggath of Christchurch based Team Projects, whose company appears to have been paid around $800,000 a year by QLDC for the same type of advice on how to run the Shotover plant.

Questions to both Veolia and QLDC have been acknowledged but no answers have been provided by our deadline at 4.45pm today January 14th. QLDC has said that this is a matter to be dealt with by Veolia, and Veolia’s top lawyer in Sydney has referred us to their NZ media team who have so far refused to reply to any questions over the past 18 months.

Mayor Glover’s request for answers from QLDC staff will be of great interest to the community - and Crux.