District council fined nearly $70,000 for unlawful wastewater discharge

Matamata-Piako City Council has been fined $67,500 after sewage was discharged into a river over a five-day period in 2023.

The case related to a sustained discharge during the Easter holidays from the Matamata District Council sewage treatment works into the Mangawhero Stream, which flows into the Waihou River.

The discharge occurred when critical equipment failed to turn on, and a series of automatic warning messages indicating that the system was at a critical level were not responded to.

It is estimated that as much as 2.8 million litres of sewage, including untreated human sewage, has been illegally discharged into the river in the past five days.

The matter was taken up by Waikato Regional Council following a formal investigation.

Passing sentence in the Hamilton District Court this week, Judge Melinda Dickey said she found the council’s breaches were “extremely negligent” and that “several alarms had been raised and ignoring them would have had serious consequences”.

Dickey also recognized the great cultural, spiritual, historical and ecological importance of the receiving waterways.

Matamata-Piako District Council was convicted of a similar offence in 2020 after a sewer pipe burst in Morrinsville in 2018 and took two days to repair.

Approximately 100,000 litres of untreated wastewater, including sewage, flowed into a 250 metre long ditch into the Piako River during that period. The council was convicted and fined $49,875 for unlawful and avoidable discharge of wastewater.