SEWAGE PLANT SITE OPPOSED

Taupo Times, Volume 23, Issue 46, 11 June 1974, Page 1

SEWAGE PLANT SITE OPPOSED

Acacia Bay ratepayers have urged the Taupo County Council to find an alternative site for its proposed temporary sewage treatment plant in the Golden Groves subdivision.

They are upset that the package plant is to be built on an 880 square metre site in a Residentiai B zone, opposite a food shop. No sewers have been laid in the area and there are no immediate plans for reticulation. Residents will have to continue with septic tank disposal. In several recent meetings with council officials the Acacia Bay Ratepayers' Progressive Association has stressed that it does not object to the proposal, only to the site. The package treatment plant would mean sewage disposal for the whole area, and connection to the Taupo borough treatment plant would be a financial possibility in a few years. Association members want the county council to seek permission from the Maori and Island Affairs Department to site the temporary plant on Rangatira B block land, 300 yards nearer Taupo. But the county chairman, Mr J. M. Black, said it would take two years to prepare the land for the treatment plant works. The Rangatira lands were also currently under study by a Royal Commission.

The riding representative, Mr E. A. Mahood, told the county council last week that some Acacia Bay people were "very determined." "I think it would pay to write to the Maori and Island Affairs Department, as the ratepayers have requested, even if there is little chance of getting a new site," he said. Although it was described by the chairman as a "fiitile exercise", a motion to this effect was passed by the council. Objections close on Friday to the county's coriditional use application for the temporary package plant.