MEDIA RELEASE DATE: 28 April 2014
$2.1 million Eltham Water Treatment Plant Upgrade

South Taranaki District Mayor, Ross Dunlop officially opened the upgraded $2.1 million Eltham Water Treatment Plant today.

The work, which involved installing a clarifier and sophisticated chemical and control systems, gives Eltham a more robust water supply and means that the town will be fully compliant with the latest Drinking Water Standards.

The opening of the Eltham plant comes hot on the heels of upgrades to the Opunake and Rahoutu water treatment plants.

Mayor Dunlop says the Council has invested a huge amount of time and money into upgrading and modernising the district’s water supplies and Eltham is the latest to benefit from its water infrastructure upgrade programme.

“Since 2005, the main priority of the Council has been on improving the District’s water infrastructure. Over the last 8 years we have completed nearly $56.3 million of work. Today our water supplies are more robust than they have ever been with new treatment plants, water bores, reservoirs and interconnections between supplies,” he says.

South Taranaki District Council engineering assets and planning manager, Howard Wilkinson, says the treatment plant has the ability to treat 5,500m3/day to Eltham.

“As well as building a clarifier Council took the opportunity to overhaul the whole treatment plant and in particular introduce sophisticated chemical and control systems. The on-site reservoir was also strengthened to meet seismic standards,” he says.

Mr Wilkinson says the $2.1 million project also received $415,000 from the Ministry of Health's Capital Assistance Programme.

“The $2.1 million upgrade means that in the last five years $4.85 million has been spent on improving the Eltham water supply, when a new reservoir was built, the existing reservoir was strengthened, and a new steel water main and other associated works were completed,” says Mr Wilkinson.

Mr Wilkinson says the final major water infrastructure project in the district is the $11 million Waimate West upgrade which should be completed around August this year. Waimate West, which supplies water to about 800 farm connections and the towns of Manaia and Kaponga is South Taranaki’s largest water supply by volume.

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