Submission on wastewater standards

^{Moa Point wastewater treatment plant.}

The Commissioner has made a submission to the Water Services Authority Taumata Arowai on its proposed wastewater environmental performance standards. He raises a concern highlighted previously in his submission on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill: that the proposed standards are too rigid and do not adequately account for the significant differences between environments across New Zealand.

Specific issues raised include that the proposed standards:

• risk introducing additional complexity and fragmentation
• appear to have been developed without adequate information
• could lead to negative environmental impacts on some environments
• use basic categorisations that do not reflect diverse environments
• do not include adequate monitoring of receiving environments.

Read the submission.