Hydro-seeding may be used as a temporary solution for dealing with stockpiled bio-solids at Wanaka's redundant wastewater ponds on Ballantyne Rd, if resource consent conditions for relocating the material to the Victoria Flats landfill cannot be met.
The material is the remnant of wastewater and sewage sludge from the drained oxidation ponds which went out of use in 2009 after Wanaka's new Project Pure wastewater treatment plant was commissioned.
The bio-solids were stockpiled and stored in plastic-covered windrows and left maturing for more than 12 months at the Ballantyne Rd site, Queenstown Lakes District Council infrastructure services acting general manager, Ken Gousmett, said.
Council testing of the material, which contained pathogens and e-coli, showed it had now reached a "safe" level.
Disposing of the bio-solids at Victoria Flats landfill in the Gibbston Valley already had resource consent, but it was yet to be determined whether consent conditions could be met, Mr Gousmett said.
"If that's not successful, we'd consider hydro-seeding the windrows in place to establish a strong grass growth over them which would benefit in protecting the material from excessive soakage from rain and seal them in."
