Neighbours get chance to see irrigation option | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

Homebush residents soon to be affected by Masterton's wastewater plant upgrade will this week get their first glimpse at an alternative centre-pivot irrigation scheme proposed in their backyard.
Consultants AWT have been preparing a $71,000 preliminary assessment of environmental effects on the scheme picked by Masterton District Council members as a potential alternative treatment system to the council's already consented, $23million border-strip scheme.
Councillors will decide next month whether to stick to plan or switch to the alternative, raising the need for more investigation and a new resource consent.
AWT will discuss its findings this week in two closed meetings; one with directly affected neighbours, and another with selected ''interested parties'' including Fish and Game and Sustainable Wairarapa.
The assessment has also been posted on the Masterton District Council's website.
The report reveals pros and cons the alternative scheme could hold.
Negative environmental effects included the leaching and degradation of soil, but those would only be likely from over-applying the wastewater to ground.
On the plus side, the alternative scheme would slash the volume of treated wastewater directly discharged to the Ruamahanga River, treat the wastewater further within the soil, and boost the economic return by using the nutrients to produce haylage and marketable crops.
The document also highlights the council's own worries with the alternative scheme.
Those include a smaller buffer distance between the operation and neighbours, the potential odour as a result of the gap being smaller, visual effects, as well as the risk aerosol spraydrift could have on public health as well as a nearby race horse stud farm owned by the Williams family. AWT concluded the alternative scheme's risk to health would be ''negligible to non-existent'' and that any effect on the neighbours' water bores were considered to be ''no more than minor''.
Council chief executive Wes ten Hove said feedback on the assessment from the neighbours and other parties would go into a report that would eventually be put to councillors.
The report would also address what consenting risks pursuing the alternative would hold.
''To compile all the right information on both the consented side and the alternative-solution side is a big task, and we're trying to stay focused on that task, notwithstanding of distractions here and there.''
The preliminary assessment can be viewed on the council's website at /www.mstn.govt.nz/projects/sewerageupgrade/