Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris

Have you sold it? Is there an apartment building going up? What's with all those pipes? These are some of the questions we've been getting about the necessary shambles currently underway at Memorial Park.

What you are seeing is the final stage of the most ambitious project in our city to date – the $100 million Southern Wastewater Pipeline connecting Tauranga with the soon-to-be- upgraded Te Maunga Sewage Treatment Plant at Mount Maunganui.

The project began in 2009 with the last section currently being drilled 30m underground a distance of 1.6km across the harbour from Memorial Park to Matapihi. All things going to plan it should be operational by Christmas; relieving the Chapel St Sewage Treatment Plant which was initially built to serve a population of just 32,000!

The pipeline will protect our precious harbour from sewage overflows. Currently Chapel St overflows treated sewage into the harbour during heavy rain and on rare occasions the system backs up with sewage overflowing into the Waikareao estuary at Third Ave before it even gets to the plant to be treated. After December, sewage, treated or otherwise, will no longer be discharged into the harbour. It will be treated to a high standard and discharged nearly 1km out to sea via Te Maunga.

With our population now more than 130,000 and growing more than three per cent a year this isn't the only ‘mega-project' underway. The $100 million Waiari Water Treatment Plant is starting soon; more on that in a future column.