TEST WEBSITE - NOT UPDATED
Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) owns and operates the Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP), located on the Shotover River Delta near Queenstown.
They hold resource consents from ORC that cover a range of activities on site, including the discharge of treated wastewater. Otago Regional Council (ORC) monitors compliance with conditions of consents and processes any consent applications.
ORC’s mandate is to work with our communities to make sure our region’s natural resources are managed sustainably.
Our consents and compliance work has four aspects:
Processing consents: we use consents to manage activities so that any harm they may have on our communities, or the environment is reduced.
Monitoring compliance: we monitor activities to make sure they comply with consent conditions and permitted activity rules.
Responding to incidents: we respond to reports of environmental non-compliance and pollution incidents.
Undertaking enforcement action: we consider all available options to ensure compliance with the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), resource consents, our regional plans, and national regulations and standards.
In this case, ORC is the consenting authority, so it has requirements under the RMA to monitor consent compliance. ORC is not the wastewater treatment plant operator or owner.
Investigations into incidents on the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) wastewater treatment site have been the highest priority investigation for ORC. Compliance monitoring is ongoing to ensure that QLDC achieves compliance with consent conditions which cover the operation of the wastewater site.
Any incidents on the site are ORC’s highest priority investigation and are taken very seriously. All compliance investigations need to be thorough and to a high standard and in undertaking their investigations ORC has ensured this happens.
As part of ongoing investigations ORC has sought technical specialist advice around the site since July 2024.
As of 4 April 2025, ORC has undertaken the following compliance actions:
2 x Abatement notices
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- Requires actions within a certain timeframe.
10 x Infringements issued
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Written notice and fine (set as between $300-$1000 in the regulations).
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1 x Enforcement Order application (in progress)
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Order by the Court requiring a person to take or stop actions within a set time.
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Regular Monitoring
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- ORC staff are onsite regularly to monitor the discharges and compliance.
- As of 7 April 2025, ORC is undertaking weekly monitoring at Council’s SOE monitoring site on the Kawarau at Chard Road.
As of 22 January 2025, ORC lodged an application with the Environment Court seeking an Enforcement Order against the QLDC around aspects of its operation of the Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant, near Queenstown, which QLDC owns and operates.
The order sought will require QLDC to undertake a number of actions aimed at achieving compliance on site. The matter is before the Courts.
Any future compliance action relating to the operation would occur in line with ORC’s Compliance and Enforcement Policy and the tools available to the Council under the Resource Management Act 1991 .
Following QLDC’s decision to use powers under s330/330A of the RMA to undertake emergency works at the Shotover Wastewater Treatment Plant, we have established a consistent sampling schedule , alongside more frequent State of the Environment water quality monitoring at our Chard Road site on the Kawarau River.
The ORC sampling sites are:
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- Upstream entirely of the Shotover WWTP and ponds (before the SH6 bridge)
- Final discharge post-UV
- Discharge to the river (at the last realistic and safe point)
- Approximately 200 metres downstream
- Upstream of Kawarau River
- Downstream of Kawarau River (past Shotover river)
The above sites have been chosen so that any impacts on the Shotover and Kawarau can be monitored. Samples will be taken by ORC staff in line with sampling processes. Results will be analysed at an independent lab.
Result of monitoring undertaken by ORC at the new sites will be uploaded here. Before being uploaded any results need to be returned from the lab and checked by staff2.
Any results and data shown here, have not been interpreted by staff and are no indication of any compliance status, any environmental effect or any compliance action.
The additional monitoring by ORC, is as well as monitoring that QLDC needs to do under their resource consent and extra monitoring they are doing.
2. Results may not be uploaded to the website until 10 plus days after a sample is taken due to lab processing times and the need to consider if the results are evidence.
ORC has been taking weekly samples on site since before Christmas 2024 (find out more under our FAQ section below).
April 2025
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April 2025
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April 2025
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April 2025
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Queenstown Lakes District Council - LandPro - Application to undertake works in bed of Shotover River to create a new diversion channel - 10 April 25
April 2025
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April 2025
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April 2025
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April 2025
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Queenstown Lakes District Council - LandPro - Application to undertake works in bed of Shotover River to create a new diversion channel - 10 April 25
Existing State of the Environment Monitoring data is available on the Environmental Data Portal for Kawarau at Chard Road. This site is located on the Kawarau River and is monitored as part of Council’s State of the Environment monitoring programme. The frequency of the sampling at this site has been increased from monthly to weekly, to ensure the community has access to more frequent monitoring results.
Under the conditions of their resource consents QLDC are required to undertake sampling for specific parameters and return these results to ORC. These results are then measured against the consent conditions. Charts showing these results can be downloaded below.
All charts have both limits and data in them. Limits are shown as lines, while actual data values that relate to those limits are shown as dots. These dots can be either red or blue. Raw data values are shown in purple.
12-month Mean: The annual mean is the average value of a water quality parameter over a year. It is calculated by summing all the measurements taken throughout the year and dividing by the number of measurements. This provides a general indication of the water quality over the year.
12-month 95th Percentile: The 12-month 95th percentile is a statistical measure that indicates the value below which 95% of the measurements fall over a 12-month period. This means that only 5% of the measurements exceed this value. Even if current results are below the compliance threshold, high 95th percentile values can affect compliance for the entire 12-month period.
Geomeans: The geometric mean (geomean) is a type of average that is calculated by multiplying all the measurements together and then taking the nth root (where n is the number of measurements). It is less affected by extremely high or low values compared to the arithmetic mean, making it useful for assessing water quality parameters that can vary widely, such as E. coli.
Any results and data shown here, are no indication of any compliance status, any environmental effect, or any compliance action.
Copies of any consent applications relating to the Shotover WWTP site lodged by QLDC will be uploaded here for public information and awareness. These applications are not here for feedback and submissions. Please refer any questions on these to QLDC.
For clarity this application is not for the discharge of treated wastewater to water. This is also not the application relating to emergency works which must be lodged within the 20-working day period required under the RMA for the use of emergency works powers). The application is up for public information and awareness and is NOT open for submissions and comments.
A consent application has been received from QLDC and is for consents to:
- divert Shotover River to ensure the discharge is always going into running water,
- disturb the bed of Shotover River to create and maintain diversion channel, and
- discharge consent for remobilising sediment from Shotover when creating the channel.
As the application is in for processing, Council will make limited public comments on it. Any questions on the content of the application, why specific consents have been applied for and questions on specifics of the application should be referred to QLDC as applicant.
No notification decision has been made on this application. Before deciding whether to notify a resource consent, the Council must follow a step-by-step assessment under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). This process ensures the Council’s decision on whether to notify an application is consistent, fair, and based on environmental effects and planning rules.
ORC has been regularly undertaking testing to monitor compliance with consented limits and conditions. This occurred at a standard series of locations to enable trend data to be collected. Testing included investigation of E. coli – Escherichia coli, TBOD – Total Biochemical Oxygen Demand, TN – Total Nitrogen, and TSS – Total Suspended Solids.
The samples were analysed based on consents parameters, and, where appropriate, other parameters used to detect wastewater. Sampling is completed by ORC staff in line with sampling procedures and analysed in an independent lab.
From 7 April 2025 a new set of standardised sampling locations were set up to specifically monitor the discharge on site. You can find out more about this monitoring programme in the sections above.
You can download the result sheets from the testing sample results above.
On 31st March, samples were taken from the discharge channel itself and upstream and downstream in the Shotover River. These samples showed E. coli levels of 730 CFU (colony-forming units) per 100 mL of water in the discharge channel and 370 CFU/100 mL at the downstream location.
These higher E. coli results are not a reliable indication of the treatment performance of the Shotover WWTP, as they were taken after the discharge left the treatment process and were likely affected by the first flush of any natural materials in the channel, such as rabbit droppings and decaying vegetation.
The sampling round conducted on 7th April 2025 was more extensive and included the final discharge at the official sampling point downstream of the UV tertiary treatment stage as well as the discharge channel and other upstream and downstream locations (refer official map). The Shotover final effluent (IN25.0273B) sampled at the official point post-UV was fully compliant with the consent limit of 260 CFU/100 mL, showing an extremely low result of less than 1 CFU/100 mL. The sample taken in the discharge channel 7th April 2025 showed E. coli was 4 CFU/100 mL. For comparison, in New Zealand, the drinking water standard for E. coli is less than 1 CFU/100 mL.
The discharge to the Shotover is being undertaken via Emergency Works provisions provided under s330 of the RMA. The decision to use this power, was made by QLDC. Any questions on this must be directed to QLDC.
This means that there is not currently a consent or application in place for this activity with specific limits. Subject to affects being ongoing, QLDC must apply for one within 20 working days of notifying ORC of emergency works.
When a consent application is received that relates to the emergency works, or any other short-term application for the site then ORC will know more about how the discharge will be managed. If and when an application is received and accepted for processing by ORC, a notification assessment will be undertaken to determine whether the application can be processed on a non-notified basis, or whether it should be limited notified or proceed with full public notification.
Any QLDC application for retrospective consent, or consents around SWTP operations will be viewable online shortly after it's lodged with ORC. ORC will not comment on an application while it is being assessed.
Once the application is online this does not mean it is open for submissions or feedback – it will be online for information and awareness. Any decision on public notification and submissions will be made in line with the RMA.
The timeline to process an application depends on whether additional information is required and whether the application is notified or non-notified.
