Sewage: Deputy mayor and ORC councillor call for halt to Queenstown development

Deputy QLDC Mayor Quentin Smith and Otago Regional Councillor Alexa Forbes are both calling for an immediate halt to all new residential and commercial development in Queenstown until the malfunctioning Shotover sewage treatment plant can be replaced.

The call comes as the ORC has issued another five infringement notices in the past few weeks to the QLDC relating to the illegal discharge of effluent that Crux has covered via multiple videos. QLDC denies that the discharges are taking place.

“I think clearly the infrastructure deficit is something that we need to respond to. When it's failing you just can't add to the problem until you fix it. I think we have to take some hard decisions and look at putting a suspension on new connections until we can get the plant working again,” the deputy mayor said this afternoon.

ORC councillor Forbes told Crux: "The growth has been phenomenal in Queenstown. We've now got some serious structural issues that we need to be examining and working through. This isn't happening properly at the moment. We don't yet know exactly what the issues are in their entirety or how they might be resolved. But we need to pause (development) so that we can have a look.”

Responding to questions about political pressure from central Government and up to 6,000 fast tracked houses being planned for Queenstown, councillor Forbes made the following comment: “We don't seem to be able to get developers to create long-term solutions to their sewage issues. I don't know how government will respond to this. As a regional council we have a mandate to look after the water and to make sure that the water consents are kept within agreed limits."

Crux has also discovered that the QLDC has hired new consultants - GHD - on October 1st 2024 to essentially start from scratch in figuring out what to do about the sewage crisis even though the advice from other consultants and experts has been clear since 2021 - the disposal field is terminally broken and can't be fixed.