The West Coast Regional Council learned of major river works being done by the Westland District Council to shore up the threatened sewerage ponds at Franz Josef Glacier only after seeing a Facebook post by Westland Mayor Bruce Smith.
Regional council staff were grilled by councillors at the monthly council meeting yesterday, including questions as to why the Westland council had not been served with an abatement notice.
The existing Environment Court enforcement order against the Westland council to have an operational sewerage system by April 2018 was noted, although staff also acknowledged that Westland would not meet that timeframe.
"Let's hope it's a design and not just 'let's put a bulldozer in here'," Cr Stuart Challenger said.
Cr Peter Ewen noted the compliance report tabled at the meeting yesterday described the Westland council's Franz sewerage pond work as "an incident" and not a complaint.
Consents and compliance manager Gerard McCormack said that was because council staff became aware of it from Mr Smith's Facebook page, "and we thought we better go and investigate".
Hokitika-based Cr Challenger was unimpressed.
It was "not a good scene" when apparently "two porkies" had been told already in the line of inquiry about who authorised the work by the time the regional council officer had visited the Waiho (Waiau) River site.
Chief executive Mike Meehan acknowledged "quite poor communication" from the Westland District Council regarding the job.
The sewerage ponds were inundated by a flash flood in March last year but the council had done "virtually nothing" for nearly 15 months to prevent a repeat, until it resolved at a hastily called special meeting on July 5 to do some rock protection using a large bulldozer which had apparently just become available.
The entire future of Franz Josef township is under scrutiny as part of the yet-to-be-released Government report.
Cr Challenger did not mince words and wanted to know "how things have got to where they are".
Mr McCormack said the regional council found out the rock protection work had commenced on July 14 and a council compliance officer visited the site five days later.
"They spoke to the bulldozer driver. He wasn't able to confirm who had instructed him to do the work."
Subsequent inquiries with the Westland council subsidiary Westroads shed no light, either.
An assets and engineering staff member from Westland told the regional council officer he understood "that the mayor had instructed them to start work".
The following day the Westland District Council informed the regional council it was doing the work under emergency provisions.
Mr Meehan said that under those provisions the district council had seven days to formally notify the regional council, and that arrived on July 24.
Cr Ewen asked if a councillor had been informed that an abatement notice had already been served.
Mr Meehan said he had planned to serve one, but finding out what was actually taking place at Franz had taken time.
"There was a real communication gap between the district council and us, and it took quite a while to unravel what was going on.
"We were going to serve it but we didn't because they were relying on those (emergency) powers," Mr Meehan said.
Cr Ewen then wanted to know if an in-house council workshop yesterday would demonstrate Westland district's progress to retrospectively apply for the appropriate consent.
Mr Meehan replied that his staff were working through the methodology of building the stopbank with the district council, including what was and was not acceptable for the consent.
"We believe that they have now engaged a project manager," Mr Meehan said.
Cr Ewen then asked if all the action was just because the regional council was "getting on their case".
"The gap was in communication around what they were doing," Mr Meehan replied.
"Once we have that clear, they have seven working days to notify us and then 20 working days to get their application in. We were trying to be proactive."
- by Brendon McMahon
