John Glover was responding to the announcement the Queenstown Lakes District Council had been served two abatement notices from the Otago Regional Council (ORC) in relation to its wastewater treatment plant in Wānaka.
Upgrade works had led to some ponding of the disposal area, surface runoff from the site, and total nitrogen within treated wastewater exceeding consent requirements.
Mr Glover said it was disappointing to hear of the abatement notices.
"One of the things I'll be wanting to understand is what the history is, at what point has senior management been kept in the loop, and at what point have our councillors been kept in the loop," he said.
"In the context of failures at the Shotover wastewater treatment plant and some issues earlier this year at the Hawea wastewater treatment plant, we need to see if there is any common threads that run through that."
He said the issues came down to how much money did the council put into them.
"But I don't think we can afford to have these things not working as intended. And so, yeah, I'm very disappointed we've had this."
Otago regional councillor Michael Laws told the Otago Daily Times on Thursday the wastewater incidents were the tip of the iceberg and there needed to be a co-ordinated response from all parts of the business and political spectrum.
Mr Laws said the QLDC was behind the eight ball with a small ratepayer base and large tourism and incoming residential numbers.
Mr Glover said Mr Laws made some good points and wondered if some of the plans the councils had come up with were out of date already.
"We have a 30-year infrastructure plan, we've got a spatial plan, we've got a growth plan, and now we're suddenly seeing thousands of homes being proposed in areas that have never been anticipated.
"So that's going to be a great challenge as to how we meet the government's objectives to have growth and housing growth, but also making sure that we can provide the infrastructure to go alongside there."
He said a lot of these plans were formed just out of Covid.
"I'm not defending this, but there would have been a high degree of uncertainty.
"What we've seen in this particular area is a rapid, rapid growth, probably one of the more significant ... along with Central Otago and parts of Cromwell, where it's just gone gangbusters.
"We're seeing things that we probably hadn't anticipated, a lot of people cashing out of the North Island and moving down here."
He wondered if the market might eventually move to developers putting in their own water and wastewater systems though that had potential problems.
"The issue from council is ... if something goes wrong and the developers or the other parties are no longer around, do we end up sort of inheriting, by default, systems which we haven't had input on design or whatever."
The government was looking to shift to proportionate liability so parties involved in defective work would only be responsible for covering the costs of their own contribution.
