Sewage: QLDC knew for four years of “incorrect operation”

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New images that reveal the true cause of the Shotover sewage plant failure confirm that senior QLDC managers knew of the problem four years ago and did nothing to prevent it. The photos also cast considerable doubt over the accuracy of a recent (January 17) QLDC statement.

Instead, it appears that the QLDC asked contractors last year to build a $1 million dollar emergency wall around the clogged disposal field with no resource consent and hidden ratepayer funding.

The council attempted in a statement on Friday January 17 to characterise the disposal field failure, which has the potential to stop all new development in Queenstown, as “periodic” and involving only “treated water overflows.” The statement also claimed that the disposal field failure was nothing to do with the main sewage plant.

QLDC blamed the lack of suitable ground soakage for the problem and even made an implied attempt to blame Ngāi Tahu for initial "cultural" design requirements that were not necessary “as part of the treatment process.”

Crux has documented virtually constant, 24 hour a day, illegal overflows from the disposal field since November 2024.

The disposal field is blocked with solid human waste and has been for years. Multiple experts have told Crux this solid waste should “not be possible if the main plant was operating correctly.” The disposal field was only ever designed to handle 100% liquid waste.

Images taken as part of an investigation following the first Otago Regional Council abatement notice in 2021 show the disposal field completely blocked by solid waste.

 

Images above and in the main feature image were part of investigations into the cause of the disposal field failure. Contractor's conclusion "Straight human waste due to the plant being operated incorrectly"

One contractor who was asked to repair the field only months after it was first commissioned has told Crux of his “horror” when he discovered the solid waste  for two key reasons. Firstly, it showed the main plant was not operating correctly – it should have been totally impossible for any solid material to reach the disposal field. The second reason for the contractor’s shocked reaction was that this could never be fixed.

The field was a write off.

We know from multiple sources that QLDC as owners of the Shotover plant were told on multiple occasions since at least 2021 of both the problem and the extent of it. Senior council staff, we assume with the full sign off from at least the CEO and probably the mayor, removed one major contractor after blaming them for the problem and then ignored the advice of the second contractor who told them the same thing – the plant was not being operated correctly.

Crux understands multiple contractor staff have recently resigned and are staging legal action on the basis of being made scapegoats or being asked to carry out unreasonable tasks - specifically dumping large amounts of illegal sewage into local rivers.

For reasons we don’t yet know, since 2021 the ORC kept issuing infringement notices and abatement notices but no prosecution.

It is now looking possible this was under extreme pressure from QLDC who feared massive economic losses in the district if commercial and property development had to be stopped for the three to five years it will take to design and build a new disposal field.

A new “front end” processing system may have partially solved the solid waste problem but whatever the first part of the waste processing system a consented and functional disposal field is still absolutely necessary. It's not an option or add on. Currently that does not exist.

QLDC has also blamed the overflow of treated effluent on periods of heavy rainfall.

Crux recorded these two videos yesterday (January 20 2025) during what has been an extended dry spell. The overflow is extensive and had a strong effluent smell. Any discharge beyond the disposal field fence is illegal - regardless of the level of treatment.

The flow did pause for a few days during the previous week, but otherwise it has been 24/7 since at least mid-November 2024.

Who built the illegal $1 million wall?

At some stage in early 2024 QLDC paid for a 2 kilometre long, 2-metre-high earth wall in an attempt to contain the blocked disposal field that is now permanently drowned by effluent.

Crux understands the cost was somewhere in the region of $800,000 to $1 million. We can find no record of this expenditure in the council’s published list of contractor payments or awarded tender bids.

The wall has partially collapsed at least twice with the ORC recording e coli levels (2,500,000 CFU’s) thousands of times higher than those that would trigger the closure of public swimming beaches.

This image of a partial collapse in the illegal QLDC disposal field wall was taken by ORC investigators in 2024 - e coli levels were at 2,500,000 CFU's.

The only reason for these extremely high readings is that the disposal field, rather than filtering well treated liquid waste as claimed by the QLDC in their recent statement, is actually just full of, and blocked by, solid waste from the main plant.

The disposal field is supposed to be dry gravel. Even in March 2023 QLDC was told in a major report by consultants BECA:

• The current disposal field is too small because of the clogging, shallow water table and hydraulic performance limitations.
• The buried nature of the trenches and the plastic baskets make cleaning and maintenance needs difficult to identify and conduct by contractors.
• The site is prone to flood hazards, erosion, and sedimentation from the nearby rivers (it is located within the ORC river training line)
• The disposal field may be able to be remediated to minimise over topping (although at potentially high cost), however is unlikely to meet future demand or provide adequate cycling and scarification.
• Discharge consents in this location are likely to be contentious and could become prohibited under the new ORC Land and Water Plan 

Source: Presentation to QLDC by Simon Mason, council Infrastructure Operations Manager.

If it transpires that the mayor and CEO knew of this four year cover up it could end their careers given the billions of dollars of development work at stake, including an extra 6,000 fast tracked houses. Plus, the damage to Queenstown’s tourism and environmental reputation and the dollars that will be lost as a result is beyond calculation.

It is now looking increasingly likely that all development will have to come to a halt given there is currently no known fix for the disposal field.

If a fix is found, and consents can be obtained from the ORC and approved by iwi, it is likely to be at least five years into the future and hundreds of millions of dollars in extra ratepayer costs.

Our expert sources say the entire mess could have been avoided if the plant had been operated properly and early warnings listened to by council managers.