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. 

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 .

ORC have been regularly undertaking testing to monitor compliance with consented limits and conditions. This occurs at a standard series of locations to enable trend data to be collected. Testing includes investigation of E. coli – Escherichia coli, TBOD – Total Biochemical Oxygen Demand, TN – Total Nitrogen, and TSS – Total Suspended Solids.  

The samples are 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. 

If staff are responding to an incident on site, samples are taken from the regular sampling sites and other locations as needed.  

QLDC are also required to undertaken monitoring under their consent conditions and return samples to ORC. This is analysed by a lab and then by ORC staff.   

COMING SOON: Result of monitoring required under QLDC’s resource consent will be shown here on a dashboard. 

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 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 staff^2.  

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). 

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. 

Download QLDC consent monitoring data << where does this come frome?

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. 

 Any results and data shown here, are no indication of any compliance status, any environmental effect, or any compliance action. 

QLDC is the plant owner and operator and must comply with their consent obligations and take actions on the site to do this. This includes monitoring or discharges which QLDC are required to undertake and return to ORC. 

QLDC Consent Conditions are available here: https://maps.orc.govt.nz/OtagoViewer232/?map=2b72476ec76446cf8270dad325952215