Council and Corrections do deal for wastewater
Construction of a wastewater pipe linking Whanganui Prison at Kaitoke to Whanganui District Council’s wastewater treatment plant will start next month.
Department of Corrections asset management director Stephen O’Neal said the pipeline and pump station were part of a wider wastewater upgrade project at the prison.
It has an overall cost of around $14 million, which will be paid for by central government.
O’Neal said planning for the new line began in 2019, with several options explored alongside iwi, council and local land owners.
“Currently, wastewater for the prison is treated at a treatment plant owned and operated by Corrections at the prison,” he said.
“While this treatment plant is currently able to treat and discharge the required volumes of wastewater with few issues, it is approaching the end of its usable life and needs a long-term solution to replace it.
“The current council wastewater plant has the capacity to treat the prison’s wastewater effectively.”
He said ownership and operation of the pump station and pipeline would be transferred to the council upon construction, with a commercial agreement in place for the prison’s wastewater to be treated at the council plant.
Whanganui District Council senior wastewater engineer Tony Hooper said once the prison wastewater pipeline was connected, the prison would pay wastewater rates which went towards maintenance — “as with any wastewater connection in town”.
The pipeline will be around 10km long, running from the prison along Kaitoke Rd, State Highway 3, Wikitoria Rd and Airport Rd, where the treatment plant is.
O’Neal said consideration was given to running it through private land at the planning stages, however, it was “deemed impractical early on”.
“Several factors were considered when deciding not to proceed with the wastewater pipeline on private land, including construction challenges, additional costs and potential delays likely to occur as a result of needing to organise access to private land,” he said.
“Potential ongoing maintenance and access challenges for the council after ownership is transferred were also a factor in not proceeding.
“As part of due diligence on assessing the options, some initial exploratory discussions were had but no formal request or offer from neighbouring landowners was made due to the constraints identified in the investigation phase.”
O’Neal said the prison’s population was not reaching its limit and the facility remained well within its operational capacity.