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Hot Off The Press

Please don’t shut us down!

March 18, 2010

Latest developments on the Hastings wastewater treatment plant.

No … it’s not fixed. [Read Kathy Webb's Stinkin' Pipes article for Baybuzz Digest if you need the history on this.]

Instead, the Hastings Council has filed a motion with the District Court to block enforcement of the Regional Council’s odour abatement notice, which requires HDC to have come up with an acceptable solution for the odour problem by May 17, or to install lids on its two bio-trickle filtering tanks by August 17 … at a potential cost of $3 million.

What does this filing mean?

BayBuzz has officially requested copies of the HDC papers filed with the Court.

But most likely, that Hastings staff and consultants have not yet found a solution … and are pessimistic that they will in time to comply without a huge expenditure.

HDC’s legal action is probably intended to buy some time, as conventional practice would be for the Court to expect that the two Councils should now engage in some official mediation — tick, tick, tick goes the clock — which would precede setting a Court hearing date should mediation fail.

You know how busy Councils’ staffs are … it make take awhile to get mediation underway! And then there’s the Court’s crammed schedule.

I can see the handwriting on the wall. The Hastings Council, ultimately faced with a stubborn odour problem and an impending compliance deadline, will award an “emergency” lid installation contract without competitive tender … but receive a six-figure “donation” to the sports park in exchange.

Another of those “win win” deals the Mayor is so fond of.

East Clive residents … hold on to your nose clips.

Tom Belford

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Hastings: For Sale?

March 16, 2010

Here’s an actual situation I welcome your opinion on.

It’s an issue of principle versus what some might call pragmatism.

Lawrence Yule, Chair of the Regional Sports Park Trust (yes, that’s Mayor Yule to most of us) sat down in his Trust capacity with Higgins Contractors, the folks who build so many roads around here.

They said: Give us the contract to build the roadwork in and around the sports park — a job worth $1.8 million — without having to go through competitive tender, and we’ll donate $500,000 to the sports park ($250k “unconditionally”).

Trust Chairman Yule brought this proposal to the Hastings Council, where it was discussed in public-excluded session and the deal was sanctioned by the Council.

The Trust awarded the contract, and with subsequent fanfare, the “gift” by Higgins to the sports park was welcomed and announced by the Trust.

Taking a principled approach, this might look like highly valuable and profitable public contracts, either directly or indirectly controlled by the Council, are “for sale” on the promise of “contributions” to the sports park. Forget competition, transparency, and public tenders … all of which are designed to protect the public interest.

In this case, one might wonder if Higgins only offered a $100,000 contribution, would that have been enough to secure the contract? Or conversely, maybe the Trust Chairman/Mayor should have struck a tougher deal, asking for $750,000!

And who does a potential vendor think they are negotiating with anyway … Trust Chairman Yule or Mayor Yule? Isn’t this role confusion itself problematic … at least sending an undesirable signal to those who hope to do business with the Council or the Trust?

Or is this simply a matter of pragmatism, as Chair/Mayor Yule argues? He says that the Trust/Council understands enough about roading costs to know that the amount proposed by Higgins to do the work was fair. And the $500,000 contribution was a nice bonus to the community.

Says Mayor Yule: “This is a win win sponsorship. Higgins will provide a very competitive price (tested against well known current pricing) and the Regional Sports Park has benefited from $500k from non ratepayer sources.”

But maybe another contractor would have offered a bigger bonus for the same favor.

And in any event, doesn’t this put the Council on a slippery slope? One might think that, by now, they know the “fair” price of everything and every service they procure. Why bother with competitive tenders at all?

And why discuss all this in public-excluded session? The Mayor says it was a “negotiating situation” that required confidentiality. But there wasn’t any negotiating going on … Higgins had said simply: Give us the contract without public tender and we’ll give you $500,000 … as generous corporate citizens.

In my view, it was debated in private because the whole arrangement might prove embarrassing. But maybe I’m a prude.

On Wednesday, to avoid future situations like this, Councillor Bradshaw attempted to pass a resolution simply requiring the Sports Trust to conduct its contracting and procurement according to the same groundrules as the Council itself. Those rules require contracts valued at over $50,000 to go to competitive public tender.

But this approach horrified Councillors Bowers and Speers, who led the opposition to this “bureaucratic” approach. Mayor Yule, speaking in his capacity as Trust Chairman, indicated the Trust would probably have a problem with being required to follow the Council’s rules. Bradshaw’s resolution failed.

Says Councillor Bradshaw: “Competitive tendering is the cornerstone to getting best value for the ratepayers and as such should have been one of the first conditions in the agreement for HDC to fund the RSP Trust. What is required is one consistent rule for all organisations being funded by the HDC. It was a shame that myself and only three of my fellow Councillors agreed.”

What do you think? Should principle or pragmatism have prevailed here? And what about going forward? For example, if a multi-million dollar velodrome is being built?

Should would-be vendors have the expectation that, with a bit of a bonus contribution, they can avoid competitive tendering?

Here is a two-question poll you can take to indicate your view (and comment further if you like).

Tom Belford

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Stinkin’ Pipes! (Part 2)

March 15, 2010

Yesterday we published Part 1 of Stinkin’ Pipes, Kathy Webb’s investigation into the viability of Hastings’ new sewage treatment plant in East Clive … a design to be copied by Napier.

Here’s Part 2, the continuation of her examination. Or you can download the entire article here.

Stinkin’ Pipes! (Part 2)
By Kathy Webb

$27m down the toilet?
Environmental watchdog David Renouf says Hastings has effectively thrown $27m down the toilet. Bio-trickle filtering without a first-stage settling process and a third stage clarifier to remove all the filtered sludge is a waste of money, he says, because large amounts of the biomass that removes nutrients from the raw sewage are flushed out of the tanks along with the filtered liquid, on to the seabed.

“It’s a bit like vacuuming your lounge, then emptying the bag all over the floor,” he says. He believes the bio-trickle plant and its accompanying “Papatuanuku Channel” were the $27m price tag for Maori agreement to a sewage-disposal solution for Hastings.

But he says Maori were misled into believing there is no human waste in the filtered discharge to sea, because although it might not be raw anymore, it is part of a chunky glutinous mass that will take a lot longer to disperse than milliscreened sewage. It’s unknown what effects biomass will have on the marine environment, because not enough tests have been done yet to prove it is harmless. And it still contains heavy metals, viruses, parasites and suspended solids that the filters have not dealt with.

Mr McLeod rejects any notion of “a $27m spend just to satisfy cultural concerns,” and says the project was necessary to meet conditions for the plant’s resource consent. The Council’s tangata whenua wastewater committee has yet to sign off on the new bio-trickle plant, but if it refuses to do so, “we’ll have to work through the whys and wherefores.”

Group asset manager David Fraser says the concept of changing the form of human waste into biomass came from Monty Paku, one of the wastewater committee members, and he’s confident the system will get the final seal of approval.

The Papatuanuku channel is an open drain studded with rocks that were blessed by Maori and are now generally referred to as “sacred,” although the Council itself does not use that word. The rocks were brought from a quarry at Linton, near Palmerston North, to spiritually cleanse the filtered discharge before it heads out to sea. It is “more symbolic than anything,” Mr Fraser says. But it is a “standard concept across New Zealand , with slightly different perceptions between iwi.”

He rejects Mr Renouf’s criticism. The filter tanks can be compared to a “quick composting” bin in a garden, turning waste into another form, but much more quickly.
“What’s coming out is bugs’ waste.” he says, and the Council is monitoring the seabed around the sewage outfall 2.5km out at sea “to see if there are any adverse changes.”
So far, the Regional Council has not replied to BayBuzz requests to see the monitoring data.

In a magazine article headlined “Cultural dreams become a technical reality with innovative wastewater treatment,” Mr Fraser describes the new Hastings system as “a model that others can follow.” “Essentially, we have secondary treatment for half the cost of primary, or one third the cost of the traditional configuration for biological trickling filters.”

The Maori cultural element focused on avoiding the transport of sewage sludge on roads past homes, marae, etc, and required “a great deal of lateral thinking and discussion from within the Maori community,” which eventually aligned the bio-trickle process with “the long drop approach, in which human waste was allowed to grow old and become inert with dignity.”

The Council’s legal adviser, Mark von Dadelszen, is more effusive. In a written article he describes the consultation and co-operation that led to the construction of Hastings’ novel take on bio-trickle filtering as an historic blend of Maori spirituality and modern science.

The Papatuanuku channel was the solution, he said, by invoking the sons of Papatuanuku ( Maori God of the Earth) to purify and spiritually cleanse the sewage, with “Tanemahuta providing biomass to transform kupara (faeces) by removing the mauri (spirit) of human wastes. Tangaroa (the sea) receives the transformed waste after passage through Papatuanuku and heals himself through movement of the ocean, and Tawhirimatea (god of the winds and weather) agitates the surface of Tangaroa and through a synthesis of air and water completes the cleansing process.”

Des Ratima, a member of the District Council’s Maori Joint Committee, is less than impressed by the lateral thinking and consultation that led to the construction of a waste disposal channel named Papatuanuku.

In fact, he’s horrified. “It’s not respectful at all. It’s totally inappropriate, almost to the point of being offensive.” Papatuanuku (Mother Earth) is a concept of support and nourishment resulting in a cleansing, “not to take dirty water and make it less dirty,” Mr Ratima says.

He’s surprised the Tangata Whenua Committee allowed what he considers to be a serious spiritual distortion, and intends to consult “a few people whose opinions I respect, and see what they think about it.” A name change for the channel could well be on the cards, he says.

The East Clive treatment plant has already attracted a lot of attention from other councils.

Napier is poised to build an identical system at Awatoto, but its tanks will have lids. Mayor Barbara Arnott says Napier is still watching events at East Clive before seeking its own resource consents later this year. “Everyone’s learned a lot from the Hastings experience.”

Napier should not have the same problems because it has a larger urban area and therefore higher volumes of domestic sewage to maintain momentum in the pipeline and filtering, she says.

It will also have a permit to discharge offensive odours to the air!

Sidebars (2)

A saga of investigation and consultation
In the early 1980s, Hastings was pumping all its sewage out to sea via a 2.75km pipeline, the longest ocean outfall in the country. It was a minimalist approach, relying on oxygen-rich receiving waters and high sunshine hours to provide plenty of ultra-violet light to break down and disperse the sewage.

Milliscreens were added in 1993 to catch the toiletries and other items that sometimes got through the initial screening.

In 1998, the Hastings Council sought a renewal of its resource consent to continue the discharge. Maori objected to a continuation of human waste going straight into the ocean, and eventually the Council was ordered to heed their concerns and consult them.

In 2001, the Council was granted consent to build a new wastewater treatment plant, to be ready by 2007, and the Council-Maori Tangata Whenua Joint Wastewater Committee was formed with the task of ensuring any new system resulted in “the significant removal of kuparu (human waste)” by 2007, and the “complete removal of kuparu” by 2009.

Maori were not happy about the natural settlement system being considered by the Council, so the committee set about finding an alternative to meet everyone’s standards. The stand-alone bio-trickle filter tanks were the result.

Hastings’ resource consent expires in just four years, so the Council must begin a whole new round of public consultation later this year. Mr Chapman says public expectations for sewage treatment have raised the bar a lot in recent years, so he will not be surprised if there turns out to be a mood for even more treatment, maybe sludge removal after filtering, or ultra-violet light.

How it Works
A traditional bio-trickle filter system has three stages – primary treatment such as settling tanks, followed by the trickle filtering, then clarifiers to collect the resulting sludge, which is removed before the wastewater flows on to its intended destination.

Settled sewage is pumped up to the top of each tank, where rotating arms spray it on to some form of media on which sewage-eating microbes, composed of algae, fungi, protozoa, rotifera, nematodes, and aerobic bacteria, live as a slimy substance commonly called biomass. As the wastewater trickles through the media, the microbes in the biomass grab and eat the nutrients in the sewage.

But Hastings does not have a traditional bio-trickle system. Mr Fraser says that is because traditional systems, built when milliscreening was unavailable, went out of vogue as more cost-effective ones were developed. To save money, it dispensed with the usual first and third stages, and built only the second-stage filter tanks. It also omitted lids on the filter tanks and a closed channel to the sea outfall, which it replaced with an open “spiritual cleansing” channel studded with “sacred” rocks from a quarry at Linton, near Palmerston North. The rocks were free, but cost $5000 to truck to Hastings.

Raw domestic sewage arriving at East Clive is screened and pressed to remove the bulkiest of solids, which are then carted off to Omarunui landfill.

The rest is pumped to spray arms at the top of two 37 metre diameter tanks, each containing five million pieces of plastic, nine metres deep. The wastewater takes 12 minutes to trickle down through the plastic.

It’s a complex process. Bio-trickle filters need a critical mass of sewage to keep their biomass alive. Too much or not enough biomass creates odour. Blockages in the media can cause sections to go anaerobic and smelly, so every few hours, the tanks are flushed to remove any lodged solids such as toilet tissue and excess biomass.

Ends

[You can download the entire article here.]

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Stinkin’ Pipes!

March 14, 2010

With this post (also the lead article in the March BayBuzz Digest), we welcome a new reporter, Kathy Webb, a journalist with a great reputation in Hawke’s Bay, most recently writing for the Dominion Post.

Kathy will investigate a variety of regional issues in-depth for BayBuzz in the coming months. In her lead-off story, Stinkin’ Pipes, Kathy examines problems surrounding the new Hastings wastewater treatment plant in Clive. Not exactly a glamour assignment! But with $27 million invested, and more required as the Hastings Council struggles to resolve odour problems, we felt the situation warranted a closer sniff.

[Part 1 follows below; Part 2 follows tomorrow. Or download the entire article here.]

Stinkin’ Pipes!
By Kathy Webb

A monumental waste of money, or a marvel of science and cultural sensitivity? The jury is still out, but one thing is sure: Almost since the day it was switched on nine months ago, Hastings ’ new $27 million sewage system has produced a seriously nauseating smell it wasn’t supposed to.

Some days it’s so bad John Robertson loses his breakfast as soon as he steps out the front door. The stink from Hastings ’ new $27 million biological trickle filter sewage tanks at East Clive “has to be smelled to be believed,” he says. “It gets right down into the back of your stomach.”

One of his neighbours says she tries not to breathe too deeply when there’s a fresh northeasterly blowing across the top of the plant’s two giant bio-trickle filter tanks. She describes a raw-sewage taste in her mouth, and cleans her teeth often.

Other neighbours suffer when the wind is more southerly.

There’s also another aspect of this much-hailed technology that has raised eyebrows among those less directly affected by its olfactory misfortunes. The inclusion of spiritual cleansing in a modern engineering process was acknowledgement of Maori cultural concerns, but some — Maori and Pakeha — wonder about the place of that in a publicly-funded sewage treatment plant.

Complaints about an awful smell began pouring in last July, shortly after the Hastings District Council switched on the much-heralded new bio-trickle treatment plant, which won the top national prize in the Technology Innovations category of the 2006 NZ Post Management Excellence awards.

Since then, it’s been a nine-month headache for everyone in charge of it or living with it. Every time the plant builds up toward optimum performance, a gut-wrenching stink wafts across East Clive and the tanks have to be switched off. As Hastings Council chief executive Ross McLeod puts it, “there hasn’t been any substantial, protracted operation of the plant yet.”

This article has more pages: Next page

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Man About Town

March 13, 2010

I Love McLean Park
By Andrew Frame

For someone so sportingly inept, I have many fond memories of the place.

Massive Mexican waves that stretched around the ground a dozen times at day-night cricket games back in the nineties — this was before plastic beer bottles at sporting events too, so it was a real “multi-media” experience. Half the bottles hadn’t even been emptied … what a waste. Being huddled-up in a corner of the Harris Stand as Napier City Rovers claimed the Chatham Cup in torrential rain. Even watching the “last ever” game between the Hawke’s Bay Magpies and Manawatu before they formed the short-lived and fatally hobbled “Central Vikings.”

The park has developed a real family atmosphere, which is quite fantastic and missing in so many other forums. In between innings at the recent ODI cricket match, the outfield was consumed with dozens of school children playing Milo Cricket. Many sections of the crowd gave the young ones as much support as the older players. It must have been quite a buzz for them.

At the same game, with nails getting bitten down to their quicks as the Black Caps chased down Australia’s score, “Sweet Caroline” and “Daydream Believer” rang out over the PA system. A baby-booming change in playlist from the usual “Oonst-oonst!” dance music that prevails had a large portion of the older crowd in the park chirping up and singing along in reasonably fine voice. What made it even more priceless from where I was sitting in the new Graeme Lowe Stand were the teens sitting lower down, necks arched around and the most beautifully puzzled looks on their faces as if to say “What the hell? That’s not music! What are Dad and Uncle Tom doing?”

While sitting on the embankment during a Blackcaps v England day-night game a few years ago, it was obvious we were amongst a far more sensible embankment crowd than there had been in previous years. It was a late season game with rain interruptions, so multi-layered clothing, coats, umbrellas and tarpaulins were ‘de rigueur’. Yet as usually happens, flocks of scantily clad teenaged girls flitted around the park in some form of mating ritual that would stump even Sir David Attenborough. As they passed our section of grass were they greeted with wolf whistles, catcalls and ribald humor? No. Calls of “Put some clothes on, you’re making me feel cold!” … “Sit down, I can’t see the game!” … and “While you’re up, can you get me some chips please?” rang out instead.

It is also a very fair ground. England and New Zealand batted exceptionally against each other three years ago and it seemed only fair, or fate, that the game ended in a tie. 340 runs each, 680 runs in 100 overs, a truly massive total.

The crowds also have a strict code of ethics. They don’t mind if Brett Lee or Mitchell Johnson bowl at speeds of over 140kph (a tad faster than the average human reaction time) providing it’s at the stumps. When the shorter deliveries start going towards the batsman’s head, “Boo’s!” and calls of “(insert Australian bowler’s name here)’s a w#$%er!” will quickly build. Not particularly sporting, but neither it seems are some of their players.

The crowds can also be quite self-regulatory. I once witnessed a spectator get king-hit from behind by some drunken or, more likely, terminally stupid oaf. While fellow spectators aided the victim, others restrained his assailant. When he tried to resist arrest, the police performed one of the most beautiful “have you met Mr Ground?” manoeuvres I have ever seen, to the cheers of nearby spectators, followed by jeers and suggestions on how he should behave if he ever got to step foot in the park again. Another cheer erupted as the victim got to his feet and was able to walk to the first aid station.

With the Magpies going so fantastically in the NPC and Napier hosting two Rugby World Cup games next year, McLean Park can only get better. Already it looks more like a stadium with the new floodlights and the Graeme Lowe Stand completing a horseshoe of grandstand seating and corporate boxes.

I think this is a relationship that will last for some time.

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Update on Tukituki clean-up

March 12, 2010

With dead fish floating in the Tukituki recently, BayBuzz checked on the status of the much-heralded plan to build a system that would dispose of CHB’s treated effluent on land instead of into the river.

Inexcusably, it seems that the CHB District Council fell asleep on the consent paperwork, requiring the HB Regional Council to step in and “project manage” the process. BayBuzz understands that the resource consent application will now be filed by the end of April.

The Regional Council is still hoping to plant trees this winter on the pasture blocks they are purchasing near the CHB settlement ponds. Once the system is operational, effluent from these ponds would be used to fertilize the trees. The Regional Council must purchase more land for the scheme than originally expected, since they now realize that high volumes of stormwater infiltrate the CHB sewer system during the winter, which has caused the settlement ponds to overflow into the river in the past. More volume requires more land.

Assuming the Regional Council doesn’t embarrass itself by rejecting the resource consent application it has largely orchestrated for CHB, it will still be up to CHB to actually commit the funds (which are in its long term plan) to get the new infrastructure constructed.

The way things are going, the on-land effluent scheme appears unlikely to be operational before the deadline already stipulated by CHB’s current consent from the Regional Council (i.e., 2014). In other words, little or no appreciable step-up in the clean-up schedule.

Tom Belford

P.S. In case anyone is still uncertain, at last check Tim Gilbertson is still a Regional Councillor. I don’t know how rumours to the contrary got started!

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Councillor Tim Gilbertson resigns!

March 10, 2010

In a move that shocked his fellow Councillors, Tim Gilbertson yesterday resigned from the Regional Council. In a meandering resignation soliloquy, here’s what Gilbertson had to say …

I can no longer pretend that I’m making a contribution on behalf of my CHB constituency to the conduct of the region’s governance. I had thought I might make it through a full three year term, but today’s point of order over who had the first right of reply on the amendment to the amendment pushed me over the edge.

I am happy to leave those matters to Eileen and Christine.

I have never really believed in the mission of the Regional Council and its ridiculous emphasis on protecting the environment. What nonsense! Time after time I have asked Council staff to produce just one dead body — from right here in Hawke’s Bay — as proof that people actually perish from sooty air or polluted water or contaminated soil … and not once has this evidence been produced.

And with the single possible exception of spending millions and millions of dollars in my district to harvest water — the best idea to hit Hawke’s Bay since refrigeration — I have yet to discover a Regional Council program that is worth spending a ratepayer dime on.

So for me to continue the charade of being a Regional Councillor is a burden I can no longer bear …

It’s like asking a vegetarian to be a butcher.

An atheist to be a pastor.

A drug dealer to be a babysitter.

Or in my case, an anarchist to be an elected official.

I apologize for deceiving the good citizens of Central Hawke’s Bay, who I might have inadvertently led to believe I was representing them as their Regional Councillor. Any reading of the proceedings of the Council will put that illusion to rest. I was just having fun.

I’ve now decided that the more honourable path would be to deride the Regional Council from the outside, rather than from within. Hopefully, I will be able to continue in my role as a columnist for BayBuzz Digest, although I suspect even they might find me over the edge.

I will also be available for hire as a salesman for super-phosphates, or as a lobbyist for water harvesting and irrigation. I hope in my lifetime to see the day when I can tramp down the middle of the Tukituki for its full length without getting my boots wet.

Naturally, I’ve thought about whether I would miss anything about being a Regional Councillor. Other than getting paid for marking time, and those terrific free lunches on Council meeting days, I can’t think of anything.”

I must confess that I am gutted to see Tim go. He was the Oscar Wilde of the Regional Council. A true wit and entertainer. But in these tough economic times, even Tim recognizes that his ratepayers deserve to get their hard-earned money’s worth.

Don’t worry Tim, there will always be a place for you at BayBuzz.

Tom Belford

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