Watercare working to help wildlife at wastewater plant

Community groups and conservation organisations are not the only ones working to improve the local environment with planting and pest control.

Staff at Watercare’s Omaha wastewater treatment plant, which sits between Jones Road and Takatu Road, are also doing their bit, with a planting and trapping programme across the 50-hectare site.

While some operations are major and part of the long-term strategy for the plant, such as gradually replacing stands of eucalypt used for irrigation with native trees, other projects are more low-key and made strictly with wildlife in mind.

Northern regional wastewater operations controller Daniel Leighton outlined some of the activities at the annual meeting of the treatment plant’s community liaison group, which was held in Point Wells on August 6.

He said 12,000 kanuka trees had recently been planted to replace gum trees felled at the Jones Road end of the site and a further 15,000 trees would be added in the next tranche.

“Eucalypts are very good at getting rid of water, but become a bit unwieldy and can fall over, which is a bit dangerous,” he said. “On the other side of the driveway, that whole area is designated for future irrigation use, so we’re trying to expedite that before we fell the rest of our gums at some time in the future.”

Leighton said other planting projects were taking place on land behind the 38,000 cubic litre storage dam, up towards Takatu Road, where a large stand of pine trees was harvested several years ago, as well as around the dam itself.

The large lagoon of treated wastewater is a popular spot with ducks, geese and other wildfowl, so the previously kikuyu-covered bank at the rear of the dam is being planted with 2600 native shrubs and grasses in a bid to provide cover for New Zealand’s rarest duck, the pateke, or brown teal.

Leighton and his crew have also teamed up with Takatu LandCare to place some 70 predator traps along the path and cycleway that runs through the site, and he is installing others elsewhere around the plant.

He said in future he would like to organise community planting days and boost pest control even further.

The Omaha wastewater treatment plant was built in 1982, with expansions in 2000 and 2004, to service Omaha Beach, Point Wells and Matakana.