The waste \u2013 locally, about 200 litres is generated per week \u2013 is typically treated and then discharged about 150m offshore from the Wairoa estuary during night-time outgoing tides. <\/p>\n
But during heavy rain, which has become increasingly common in recent years in the northern Hawke\u2019s Bay town, its wastewater system has overflowed directly into the Wairoa River.<\/p>\n
In response, the Wairoa District Council has been working towards a separation process.<\/p>\n
Mayor Craig Little said the three-stage approach will see mortuary waste captured at source and separated, transported to the cemetery, and discharged to land.<\/p>\n
The council aims to be the first council in New Zealand to achieve this, with the project under development and expected to be operational before the end of June.<\/p>\n
It has been working on the separation process for several years, including a legislative shift in 2022 listing mortuary waste as a prohibited waste in its bylaw.<\/p>\n
Little said internationally and nationally, there was a significant shift in mortuary waste disposal practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cWairoa is pioneering change with our goal to have mortuary waste separated and disposed of through a specialised land-based disposal system,\u201d Little said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a truly collaborative project where the Council has listened to the community and worked with them towards the desired outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Little said from an environmental taiao perspective, the change was significant. <\/p>\n
\u201cWairoa is leading the way with this transformation, which is the result of a co-lab partnership where we have all worked together to achieve this result.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been funded through the Central Government\u2019s Better Off funding, alongside community engagement, including a M\u0101ori wastewater working party with input from local stakeholders, a Body Representing M\u0101ori (BRM) and students from Te Kura Kaupapa M\u0101ori o Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu o Te Wairoa.<\/p>\n
Wairoa\u2019s BRM chairwoman and Hawke\u2019s Bay regional councillor Michelle Mcllroy said the project was fantastic for Wairoa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about making the water cleaner and the entire community backed us up,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had significant cultural concerns with the dead entering our wastewater, then the moana and awa, the same place our community fish and gather kai \u2013 it\u2019s culturally abhorrent.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said when someone drowned, a r\u0101hui \u2013 a M\u0101ori customary practice grounded in tikanga and kaitiakitanga \u2013 was put in place, creating a temporary restriction on accessing a specific area or harvesting resources.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis practice would need a permanent r\u0101hui.\u201d <\/p>\n
She said it was fantastic for Wairoa and she took her hat off to the council and everyone involved in making it possible.<\/p>\n
Little said the project has been undertaken by council staff and made possible through contracting local people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI extend a big thank you to everyone who has been involved. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no blueprint for what we are doing; we are the first cab off the rank, so there are a lot of unknowns.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project will see mortuary waste fully contained onsite in a purpose-built tank at Pickering Funeral Services.<\/p>\n
The tank will be transported to a specific site at the Wairoa Cemetery and discharged safely on to land through an in-ground layered discharge process similar to an underground effluent field. <\/p>\n
The layered filtration system is designed to remove contaminants through natural soil filtration before final discharge into the surrounding disposal field.<\/p>\n
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The waste \u2013 locally, about 200 litres is generated per week \u2013 is typically treated and then discharged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[217290,64484,1558,209336,43941,17881,6871,305,296,702,2190,2720,96469,111,43,139,69,1118,168635,2170,4499,63559,1324,6211,8690,61,6699,15289,25361,78597,1530],"class_list":["post-423444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ao","tag-bane","tag-been","tag-campaigned","tag-discharge","tag-got","tag-has","tag-have","tag-into","tag-it","tag-long","tag-mori","tag-mortuary","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-pioneering","tag-plan","tag-small","tag-solve","tag-stop","tag-system","tag-te","tag-to","tag-towns","tag-wairoa","tag-waste","tag-wastewater","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}