Sewage treatment plant upgrade reaches first milestone

Heavy rain over the last few days and weeks and the cold winter months have failed to slow substantive progress on Timaru District’s major sewerage upgrade.

The first major concrete pour on the $15 million domestic wastewater treatment plant upgrade on Aorangi Road at Seadown took place this week, signalling the beginning of the building and plant construction phase of the project.

The concreting milestone will also lead to a process of on-site pipeline realignment that will connect the new Timaru City industrial sewage line into the former domestic treatment plant intake, and reroute the former domestic milliscreen plant feed to the new domestic pump station being built alongside.

The new connections represent a major advance in the way the district processes, treats and discharges its wastewater. The separate domestic and industrial waste streams necessary for enhanced effluent discharge quality were provided for in a five-stage upgrade of the main trunk sewer over the last few years. The project is the culmination of years of council planning via its Timaru District Wastewater Management Strategy.

Timaru District Council drainage and water manager Grant Hall said today the first concrete pour would install the floor and a wall upstand for the new domestic pump station directly adjacent to the existing milliscreen plant. This pour would be followed by the floor and wall upstand for the new peak flow pump station, just next door.

He said progress on the entire project was excellent with a good run for earthmoving contractors who, over an 18-month construction timeline, will carry out earthworks over a total of approximately 48 hectares on both sides of Aorangi Road as well as a number of separate projects. More than 30 hectares of primary oxidation ponds, eight hectares of maturation ponds and 10 hectares of wetlands will be constructed.

“Silt that we are harvesting to line the ponds and wetlands is showing up to be more plentiful than forecast which is great,” Mr Hall said.

Work was progressing on several fronts simultaneously, he said.

“Cut-off drains were also being constructed at the same time as pond profiling and equipment procurement such as screens, pumps, and associated infrastructure is well in hand.”

Mr Hall said the project was having no impact on neighbours and was well meeting environmental requirements.

ENDS

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