The ORC's sewage evidence against QLDC

It's a year's worth of compelling evidence

In today’s Friday Edition:

• We publish all of the ORC’s Environment Court evidence against the QLDC with some quick summary notes.

• Based on this evidence, that amounts to a long term cover up, will our mayor and CEO survive until October’s local body elections?

• Crux editor Peter Newport reckons he and Crux readers need to get to know each other a bit better - and he’s promising a wider spectrum of paid subscriber content.

• In a significant loss to the local journalism scene, Debbie Jamieson has announced that she’s leaving Stuff - to work for Joseph Mooney.

ORC vs QLDC. The full sewage evidence - in detail.

Crux has covered the sewage crisis in some detail and we think it’s a great opportunity today to hand over the limelight to some very thorough work from the Otago Regional Council.

QLDC managers kept asking for extension after extension - but fixed nothing.

Now the ORC wants the Environment Court to issue an enforcement order that will give QLDC no option but to act. However, from our reading of the evidence and potential solutions, the short term solution is less sewage into the plant - logically that would mean some type of limitation on new property development. Costs and consequences could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars - with only ratepayers left to foot the bill.

The ORC evidence is split into around 20 sworn affidavits. Here are the key ones - plus the overarching Enforcement Order application here.