PCE submission on wastewater standards

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has written to the Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai to express his concerns regarding the proposed wastewater environmental performance standards.

He raises a concern highlighted previously in his submission on the Local Government (Water Services) Bill: that the proposed standards are too rigid and do not adequately account for the significant differences between environments across New Zealand.

Specific issues raised include that the proposed standards:

• risk introducing additional complexity and fragmentation

• appear to have been developed without adequate information

• could lead to negative environmental impacts on some environments

• use basic categorisations that do not reflect diverse environments

• do not include adequate monitoring of receiving environments.