Whakatāne District Council will meet on Thursday to discuss purchase of land for the Matatā wastewater project.

The public excluded meeting will take place following the council’s infrastructure and planning committee meeting.

The only item for discussion at the extraordinary meeting is a report named the Matatā Wastewater Project Land Purchase and Lease Report.

The report is not publicly available but contains two property valuations, from CBRE and Veros.

A reticulated sewerage system has been sought for Matatā for the past 20 years. Properties in Matatā are reliant on individual septic tanks, however, these have been shown to pose environmental and public health risks.

The council has been looking into a reticulated wastewater system in Matatā since at least 2004, when the Bay of Plenty Chief Medical Officer of Health Phil Shoemack concluded that Matata was not suitable for septic tanks.

The Matatā debris flow in 2005 and subsequent recovery delayed progress on the project.

The council was able to progress a proposal for a reticulated system as far as receiving resource consent but this was revoked in the Environment Court in 2015.

At the time, the council reported it had spent approximately $2.8 million on project design, resource consent preparation and hearing, the Environment Court appeal and the subsequent investigation of other potential solutions.

A proposal to integrate a reticulated system to other wastewater treatment plants in the district was investigated but risks were identified in piping wastewater between towns.

The current project, to create a standalone reticulated system for Matata with disposal to land was revived in 2021 after several years of community lobbying, including the formation of a Matatā Reticulated Sewage Action Group in 2018.

The project uses a collaborative co-design approach, with representation from local iwi and hapū.

Te Niaotanga ō Mataatua ō Te Arawa Matatā Wastewater was formed to guide the council in its decisions to provide a safe and reliable wastewater system that allows for growth of the area.

Extensive ground and surface water testing of several sites around Matatā was carried out between 2021 and 2023 showing human faecal contamination detected at sites within and downstream of the town was most likely derived from septic tank leakage or discharge.

There have been discussions with landowners around sites for a wastewater treatment plant though the location and system type and the location of the land application disposal field are still to be determined.

For reasons of carrying out commercial activities, the discussion will be held under public excluded provisions of the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.

Decisions made at the meeting can be released to the public upon approval of the chief executive.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.