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More than two hectares of gum trees have been felled at the Omaha Wastewater Treatment Plant for safety reasons, Watercare’s annual community liaison group meeting for the plant heard last month.
Regional operations manager Daniel Leighton said 1.7 hectares of trees had been cut along the cycleway just in from Jones Road, as they posed a health and safety threat to walkers and cyclists in high winds, when they “tended to topple over”.
A further half a hectare had also been felled alongside Jones Road to give safer clearance for planes using the Omaha Flats Aerodrome, which lies just across the road from the wastewater plant’s north-eastern boundary and end of the cycleway.
The tree plantations around the site are used to soak up treated water from the plant.
Leighton told the meeting at Point Wells Bowling Club that the felled gums were being replaced with 12,000 native kanuka trees, which would probably not take up quite as much irrigation as the gums and would take a while to mature.
“We’ll be reinstating irrigation and we’ll try to make it look pretty as time goes on, as it’s a bit of a mess at the moment,” he said.
A spokesperson for the airfield requested the felling of a further small section of trees, which Watercare staff said would be looked into.
