The increasingly turbulent waters of the City Council Wastewater Management Review Committee received another stir this week with tangata whenua members signalling they want access to decision-making powers and more money.

Photo: file.

The WWMRC was formed 11 years ago when council sewerage discharge consents were renewed. It comprises of three elected members and three appointed from iwi whose traditional rohe is affected by the Te Maunga waste water treatment plant.

To obtain the discharge consent, the council was also obliged by the court to establish the environmental mitigation and enhancement Fund of $250,000.

The committee's reason for existence is to distribute the fund, which it has failed to do. Apart from two donations; more than $130,000 to Manaaki Te Awanui Charitable Trust for its titiko study – and $27,600 awarded to a combination Nga Potiki/Tauranga City Council research and educational effort that will use isotope analysis to investigate the snails' environmental backgrounds.

There is $92,400 left in the fund. The council is ten years into the consent. The Maori members also want the council to approve in the Long Term Plan, an additional $50,000 a year for five years, which will bring the cost of the coastal discharge consent up to $1.5 million.

The additional $50,000 a year reflects the on-going and significant effects of the WWTP operations on the environment which are not avoided, remedied or mitigated.

Tama says the reason there is still money in the account is because the committee's policy doesn't match the terms of the consent. Whitiora McLeod says quite a few groups applied for part of the $90,000 but made no headway.

The current spending focus is on research and monitoring, but a different view might lead to projects with more tangible options, says Tama.

'In my view the real issue is how this fund is being managed to date, and the way it's been tied up,”

He says it's clear from the consent that the effects to be mitigated are not limited to areas or the environment directly affected by the treatment plant. It includes cultural and spiritual effects. Mitigation can include measures not directly connected to the affected areas.

He is suggesting a sub-committee with delegated powers to assess and approve applications, perhaps with parameter, say a $30,000 ceiling. And it would meeting within a month of any application being received.

He said earlier that the fund has a range of scoring and weighting on certain criteria and while individual criteria are all consistent with the conditions, when they are put together, they don't sit nicely with the consent itself.

'I guess as it's currently framed, the criteria are all focused on research and monitoring whereas for me the criteria are more focussed on mitigation, finding some sort of responses that can address the effect,” says Tama.

The committee voted four two in favour, with Catherine Stewart and Kelvin Clout opposing the motion.

Chairman Rick Curach's admission that he voted as an enabling matter but expected the motion to be knocked back by council, sparked a comment from Tama that the committee should have decision making power on issues that concern it.

'I think we need to resolve it – or what are we doing here?”

The Wastewater Management Review Committee is unique among council committees being created by decree, as part of the sewerage discharge consents the council obtained from the BOP Regional Council in 2004 concerning the treatment plant and ponds in Rangataua Bay.

Its sole job is to receive the monitoring reports on the city's wastewater scheme, and make recommendations to the council, and make decisions about spending the environment mitigation and enhancement fund – of not less than $250,000.

Even its 50/50 make-up of half councillors and half tangata whenua appointees is determined by the consent.

The committee has eight members, four councillors and four appointed representatives of the Ngati Ranginui and Te Runanga o Ngaiterangi Iwi Trust and two members as representatives of the Nga Potiki Kaitiaki Resource Management Unit.

This is the third council the Wastewater Management Review Committee has been part of, and the first to have a deputy chair, Matire Duncan, from the appointed membership. While the committee has been running for more than six years with 50/50 representation and guided by Treaty of Waitangi principles of partnership, she still had to remind the council of its responsibilities through a notice of motion.