A new wastewater upgrade in Queenstown is expected to provide emergency storage and reduce the risk of overflows into nearby Lake Wakatipu.
Queenstown. Photo: 123RF
The Queenstown Lakes District Council signed off on the upgrade of Wakatipu wastewater infrastructure this week.
The council's property and infrastructure general manager Peter Hansby said a wastewater pump station would be built at the Queenstown Recreation Ground with a new pipeline carrying waste across the town centre to the Frankton sewer.
The work will start on Monday and take about nine months to complete.
The new station would take some of the load off existing facilities and create more pumping capacity, Hansby said.
"When completed early next year the new pump station will immediately be able to service Gorge Road, Arthur's Point and Lakeview," he said.
"This will take some of the load off our existing facility at Marine Parade, provide emergency storage, additional pumping capacity and reduce the risk of wastewater overflows into Lake Wakatipu in the event of an outage in the network, or emergency.
"To minimise disruption we're investigating the use of a trenchless construction approach to build the pipeline from the Recreation Ground through town to the intersection of Park Street and Brisbane Street road reserve."
About 50 carparks at the recreation ground would be temporarily lost from Monday until January next year, he said, and some disruption was inevitable but the council would work to minimise that as much as possible.
"We acknowledge that temporarily losing carparks in town may be frustrating for some.
"However, it is necessary to ensure that this important infrastructure project can be completed safely. As the project progresses we'll keep in touch with affected residents and work to manage disruptions where we can."