Keynote Speakers

Andrew Carvell

Andrew Carvell is the General Manager - Waters at Whangārei District Council, where he leads the planning, delivery and management of drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services. With extensive experience in infrastructure and public sector leadership, Andrew has a strong focus on building resilient, future-ready water systems that support growing communities and environmental sustainability. Andrew has played a key role in advancing strategic projects and organisational change across the waters sector, including leading the development of the Northland Waters CCO. He brings a practical, solutions-focused approach to complex challenges, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, innovation, and delivering long-term value for communities.

Hon. Steve Maharey

Hon. Steve Maharey CNZM is the Chair of Central Districts Water and a contributor to Iti Kopara: Public Governance Aotearoa. He has extensive governance experience at the local, central, and international levels. He was Vice-Chancellor of Massey University. He was the Member of Parliament for Palmerston North for 18 years and a Minister, holding a wide variety of portfolios, for nine years. He was a Palmerston North City Councillor. He was a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and a Junior Lecturer in Business Administration. He was awarded the Companion of New Zealand Medal (CNZM) in 2008.

Will Local Water Done Well Work?

Across New Zealand, new water organisations are taking shape in response to the Government's Local Water Done Well legislation. Central Districts Water (CDW) is one of them. Owned by the Councils of Horowhenua, Palmerston North and Rangitīkei, CDW is racing to meet a 1 July 2027 deadline when it will come into operations. 

Good progress is being made, but it is not all plain sailing. How New Zealand's drinking water, wastewater and stormwater are regulated, funded and delivered has long been the subject of controversy. The question is - do the current reforms represent a way forward that everyone will, eventually, agree on? 

The answer is not clear. Water reforms are taking place alongside changes to regional and local government. Debates about the number of water organisations, local democratic control versus efficiency, centralisation versus localisation, the amount of regulatory constraint placed on management and the role of Māori are far from resolved. 

What this means is that Local Water Done Well is a work in progress. Many rocks, rapids, and waterfalls will need to be negotiated with care if water is to flow in the direction New Zealanders need. 

Assoc. Prof. Carol Stewart

Carol is an Associate Professor in Environmental Health in the College of Health at Massey University with strong links to the Joint Centre for Disaster Research. Her research interests include environmental health consequences of natural hazards and disasters; volcanic hazard impacts; volcanic ash chemistry; environmental, agricultural and health impacts of volcanic eruptions; developing volcanic ash hazard assessment methods; and vulnerability of water and wastewater infrastructure to natural hazards and disasters. She has been fortunate enough to carry out volcanic eruption impact assessments in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Vanuatu and New Zealand, including contributing to the MFAT-funded scientific response to the 2017-2018 Ambae eruptions in Vanuatu. She is a Co-director of the International Volcanic Health Hazards Network (www.ivhhn.org), a core member of the international Volcanic Ash Impacts Working Group, and a member of the World Association of Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM) Oceania chapter. Within New Zealand, she is an active member of the New Zealand Institute of Environmental Health and has run workshops on preparing for natural hazard events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. 

Rodney Wong

Rodney is a 3rd generation New Zealand-born Seeyip Cantonese Chinese. He brings over forty years' experience across a variety of private and public business sectors. With an initial background in food production technology, he has held CEO roles (including NZ managing director of FMCG brands e.g. Yoplait, Birdseye, Edgell & Leggos). 

More recently he has held numerous professional board roles as Director & Chairman of many diverse organisations e.g. High Value Engineering, Iwi Investments, Airports and Social Service Agencies. He is a former Chair of Crop and Food Research and led the merger to form Plant & Food Research before becoming their Deputy Chair. 

He has been awarded Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Food and Science Technology. He received the Palmerston North City Civic Award, its highest recognition for voluntary service to the community, for leading projects such as co-founding the Wildbase Recovery Centre & establishing a foundation to build the new Palmerston North Hospital Children's Emergency Department.

Collaboration on Public Projects...What I didn't tell you.

To follow on from my talk last year, we now address the elephant in the room. Collaboration: improving inequity doesn't sit with a single agency or organisation sounds good but what does that mean when things go bad & it effects you personally and/or professionally. A very personal perspective...

Panellists

Mayor Grant Smith

Grant Smith is the 29th Mayor of Palmerston North City, elected in 2015 and is proactive in supporting international and global relationships. Grant has had an extensive business background in advertising and marketing before becoming Mayor and has also served on the boards of several regional and national cultural and sporting organisations. He has championed the international programme Palmerston North City Runs, which supports key city sectors of Logistics, Distribution & Transportation, Food Research, International Education, Defence and Trade.

Mayor Andy Watson

Andy Watson has been involved in Local Government for nearly 20 years and is currently serving his 5th term as Mayor for the Rangitīkei. Rangitīkei is one of the larger land authorities in New Zealand with the prominent industries being associated with agriculture. Andy has been qualified as a Chair under the RMA and has co-chaired an Internal Affairs led working party on the interface between RMA Reform and the Three Waters Reform process. 

Andy gained a Bachelor of Agricultural Science from Massey University and has developed extensive farming properties before farming on his own account. He then diversified into tourism businesses largely based in the greater Auckland area. 

Andy is passionate about Local Government and has led the advocacy in dealing with land-locked land issues in the Rangitīkei. Any has been involved with brining industries associated with bioplastics to the Rangitīkei and has been frustrated with being held up within the Environment Court process for the last 5+ years.

Presenters

Cady Burns

Cady works at The Wastewater Specialists, where she is determined to make a positive impact in the industry. She holds a Bachelor of Science and is currently completing her Master’s research in environmental science. Cady combines a strong scientific foundation with practical laboratory experience to support wastewater treatment optimisation and environmental protection. 

Proactive Management of Trade Waste Discharges using Respiration-Based Toxicity Testing

Biological wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are subject to toxic shock events from industrial discharges, which can inhibit microbial activity, particularly nitrifying bacteria, resulting in lower ammonia removal, higher BOD/COD, process instability, and increased operational costs. Current monitoring approaches, including chemical analysis and routine biomass assessment, can identify symptoms of inhibition, but lack the ability to understand the direct biological impact or identify safe thresholds/limitations/dilutions for incoming wastewaters. 

Respiration-Based Toxicity Testing (RBTT) provides a direct, biologically relevant measure of microbial activity by assessing oxygen uptake rates in activated sludge exposed to wastewater samples. This approach enables identification of inhibitory thresholds and dilution factors at which industrial discharges begin to impact treatment performance. 

This presentation will outline the application of RBTT using New Zealand case studies, demonstrating how the method has been used to identify previously unrecognised inhibitory discharges, support trade waste investigations, and inform consent conditions. In several instances, RBTT has contributed to improved plant stability and reduced risk of non-compliance. Increasing focus on preventing environmental harm, including requirements under the Local Government (Water Services) Act 2025 and NZS9201:Part23:2004, highlights the need for proactive trade waste management. The Act supports the inclusion of monitoring and testing within trade waste permits, providing a pathway for tools that protect wastewater treatment performance. RBTT enables direct assessment of biological inhibition, defining thresholds based on microbial response. This provides councils and industry with a practical, evidence-based method to manage trade waste risks and protect both treatment processes and receiving environments.

Sasha Eremin

Co-Designing Future Wastewater Discharge Options: Land Irrigation Feasibility Assessment for Councils

Whakatāne District Council is investigating long-term wastewater discharge options for the Murupara wastewater treatment system ahead of the current consent expiry in 2028. Existing infrastructure constraints, flood risk and the cultural significance of the current site location prompted investigation into alternative discharge approaches, including treated wastewater irrigation to land.

 This presentation outlines the feasibility assessment undertaken to support early option development and decision-making, guided by the initial Taumata Arowai wastewater environmental performance standards and a wider co-design process involving council, technical specialists and iwi/hapū partners. The assessment considered soil suitability, topography, groundwater depth, climate, land use, proximity to sensitive receptors, land ownership and cultural considerations to identify opportunities and constraints associated with land-based discharge. The presentation discusses how technical, environmental and cultural factors were evaluated together within the project co-design framework, and how this influenced the assessment of potential discharge options. Key constraints identified included shallow groundwater, high rainfall, slope limitations and the significant land area required for year-round irrigation.

Findings indicated that fully land-based discharge solutions would likely be challenging and costly in this environment, particularly for forestry irrigation without significant storage capacity. Hybrid discharge approaches combining land and water discharge were identified as more practical and resilient options. This case study will be relevant to councils, consultants and operators navigating evolving wastewater expectations, particularly where projects require balancing technical feasibility, cultural values, environmental outcomes, affordability and long-term community objectives through collaborative decision-making processes.

Ross Leitch

Coming from a software background where the future promised has always been big and bold to a water treatment future where the ideas need to be bigger, I blend all available disciplines to bring the best out of water and see nature thrive once again.

Clean and Not Green New Zealand

Looking into the future and honouring the past provides a framework for success that we desperately need as a small country facing big problems. Water treatment has been isolated as an engineering discipline without much thought or care for the aspects of life that make it worth living. We will look at the cultural, social and economic benefits to viewing water with a holistic lens and the unexpected benefits of treating your problem as the solution with everyone at the table.  

Song Li

Song is a wastewater process engineer and project manager who has studied and worked in China, Europe, and New Zealand. He has worked for nearly 20 years in the water industry, with various employers, such as equipment suppliers, EPC contractors, dairy farms, milk factories, local council and now Lutra, a consultancy company specialising in process engineering. Song’s special interest in on sludge and biogas treatment, plus high strength industrial wastewater treatment. He has designed, built, commissioned, and operated several wastewater treatment plants and is glad to share his experiences.  

Moving Bed Biofilm Reactors for Wastewater Treatment: Pilot-Scale Learnings and Industrial Application

New Zealand's industrial and municipal wastewater sectors face increasingly stringent discharge consent conditions for nitrogen, BOD, and phosphorus, yet many operators lack cost-effective retrofit options that fit within existing treatment train footprints. The Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor (MBBR) is a compact, biofilm-based biological treatment technology with a strong international track record and significant potential for wider adoption in New Zealand.

This paper presents findings from a series of MBBR pilot tests at the Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) Totara Road WWTP, contextualises these against published industrial MBBR performance data, and discusses applicability to New Zealand's food processing sectors. The Totara Road WWTP requires an upgrade to meet new discharge requirements ahead of consent expiry in 2028. PNCC commissioned Lutra to evaluate MBBR as an alternative to conventional activated sludge upgrades. A pilot-scale system has been deployed across two sequential test configurations. An initial phase trialled the MBBR in an oxic/anoxic configuration treating pond effluent, targeting nitrification with biological nitrogen removal. This work established biofilm development on the carrier media and highlighted the importance of remote monitoring and real-time process control. The current phase repositions the MBBR upstream of the oxidation ponds to treat primary effluent in an anoxic/oxic (A/O) configuration, targeting combined BOD and nitrogen removal. This configuration exploits the carbon source present in primary effluent for conventional nitrification-denitrification. 

A new pilot plant using a newer-generation PVA gel carrier medium is being evaluated alongside traditional plastic carriers for durability and cost advantages. Surface area removal rates (SARRs) are being measured to develop site-specific design parameters for full-scale implementation. The MBBR process has been proven at pilot and full scale across diverse industrial wastewaters. In dairy processing, pilot-scale systems have achieved COD removal above 85% at HRTs of 7–8 hours, with up to 98% removal reported at lower organic loadings. In pulp and paper, pilot trials have demonstrated 65–75% COD and 85–95% BOD removal at 4–5 hour HRTs, with 70% COD removal achieved at loading rates as high as 25 kg COD/m³/day. For meat processing effluents, the high nitrogen-to-COD ratio makes biological nitrification-denitrification well suited, and the biofilm process offers superior tolerance to the load variability inherent in batch operations.

Across these applications, common advantages emerge: no sludge recycle requirement, compact footprint, resilience to shock loads and fluctuating influent quality, and the ability to retrofit into existing tankage. These characteristics are directly relevant to New Zealand's food processing sectors, where space constraints, seasonal load variability, and tightening trade waste or direct discharge limits are common challenges. Key outcomes and future directions. Results from the PNCC pilot will be presented, including biofilm establishment time, nitrogen and BOD removal performance across both configurations. 

Kurt Lindsay

Reconsidering Trade Waste Consent Exemptions for Cafes with no Onsite Food Preparation

This presentation explores whether current assumptions around non-cooking cafés and grease trap requirements remain appropriate under the Wellington City Council (WCC) Trade Waste Bylaw. Using a real Wellington café as a case study, the presentation demonstrates that significant fats, oils, and grease (FOG) accumulation can still occur even when food is not prepared onsite. The findings raise an important question: Should cafés selling prepared food still require trade waste consent and grease management controls, regardless of whether cooking occurs onsite?

Mike Monaghan

Mike Monaghan is the Manager of 3 Waters at Palmerston North City Council, bringing over 40 years’ experience in the water industry across the United Kingdom and New Zealand. He began his career with North West Water in the UK as an electrical engineer and has since developed extensive expertise across the full water cycle. Mike’s experience spans water and wastewater treatment, reticulation networks, and biosolids processing, including work with advanced technologies such as fluidised bed incineration. Throughout his career, he has maintained a strong operational focus, with a deep appreciation for the people and systems that underpin reliable water services. He is particularly passionate about supporting the next generation of water industry professionals and is a strong advocate for developing skilled, capable operators to meet future challenges. Mike is a proud Life Member of the Water Industry Operations Group (WIOG) and has been recognised with its service award—affectionately known as the “I.D.I.O.T. Award”—reflecting his long-standing contribution to the sector and commitment to operational excellence. 

Nature Calls: a Consenting Journey Through Challenging National Legislation

This paper presents the Palmerston North City Council’s “Nature Calls” programme, a once-in-a-generation project to secure a new resource consent for the city’s wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in response to evolving environmental expectations and regulatory reform. Framed as a narrative case study, it traces the consenting journey from its early strategic foundations through to recent national policy disruption. Initiated to address expiring consents and improve environmental outcomes for the Manawatū River, the programme progressed through option development, stakeholder engagement, and identification of a Best Practicable Option (BPO). 

However, as cost estimates escalated to levels that challenged long-term affordability for the community, Council made the deliberate decision to pause the consenting pathway. This pivot reflected a growing tension between environmental ambition, financial sustainability, and community willingness to pay. Concurrently, central government signalled significant reform through the introduction of national Wastewater Environmental Performance Standards (WEPS). This created a period of uncertainty across the sector, resulting in an approximately 18-month delay to the consenting process, during which only low-regret workstreams could continue. 

The programme responded by maintaining technical momentum, refining design assumptions, and positioning itself to align with the emerging national framework. With the subsequent finalisation of the WEPS, the programme has been able to move forward with renewed pace and clarity, enabling a more confident and future-aligned approach to consenting. From a Council project team perspective, this paper explores the practical implications of operating within a shifting legislative environment, highlighting lessons in adaptive planning, stakeholder communication, and balancing environmental, cultural, and financial drivers.

Ross O'Loughlin

Ross O’Loughlin is Regional Manager – Upper North Island for WM Technical Services, with 17 years’ experience across the hazardous and industrial waste sector in both New Zealand and the United Kingdom. His background spans hazardous waste treatment, recovery and disposal operations, industrial services, and commercial leadership, with a strong focus on regulatory compliance, operational risk, and sustainable waste management solutions. Ross has worked extensively across the interface between industry operators, customers, and regulators, and is particularly interested in strengthening duty of care and end-to-end compliance across the waste lifecycle. He is an active participant in industry engagement through organisations including WasteMINZ and WRIA. 

From Compliance to Confidence: Strengthening Duty of Care Across the Liquid Waste Lifecycle

Trade and industrial liquid waste management depends on a complex chain of custody involving waste generators, transporters, treatment providers, disposal facilities, and regulators. While each party may operate within its own compliance framework, failures often occur in the gaps between organisations, systems, and responsibilities. 

This presentation explores the concept of “duty of care” across the full compliance chain and examines how stronger end-to-end accountability can improve environmental outcomes, reduce operational risk, and deliver tangible value for both industry and regulators. Drawing on practical operational experience from the hazardous and liquid waste sector, the session will discuss common weaknesses in compliance chains — including waste characterisation, transport controls, treatment verification, downstream traceability, and contractor management — and how these issues can contribute to network impacts, treatment plant disruption, environmental incidents, and regulatory exposure. The presentation will also explore how organisations can move beyond minimum compliance toward more integrated assurance models that strengthen customer confidence, improve data quality and transparency, support better decision-making, and create more resilient waste management systems overall. 

As regulatory expectations and public scrutiny continue to increase, the ability to demonstrate robust duty of care across the entire waste lifecycle is becoming not only an environmental necessity, but also a commercial and operational advantage.

Kay Shaw

Change keeps things interesting – right? At Mactrap we are constantly seeking to understand customers and changing industry requirements. We design and manufacture new options and improve existing products. We are dedicated to the Trade Waste sector.  Our sessions this conference focus on understanding changes in commercial kitchens and the impact on grease traps and the wastewater network.

•  The new cookers in commercial kitchens and options for pre-treatment 
•  Acknowledging when under bench grease traps are the only option and how to maximise their performance? 

What's Good, and What's Bad about Grease Converters and Grease 

With dining out becoming the norm and urban intensification squeezing more businesses into the same space there is often no space or suitable drainage to install an external grease trap. This session describes when under bench grease traps are the only option and what types are available.

• When are large capacity external grease traps not an option
• What type of under-bench grease trap is best suited for different types of kitchens
• How to size an under-bench grease trap
• How frequently must they be serviced• Important information about installation
• Support available to operators• Improvements in under bench grease traps

Christian Shouler

Christian is a Trade Waste Officer at Co-Lab Water Services. He has been with the team for 5 years, contributing by conducting audits and investigations in Matamata Piako District and Hamilton City, writing consents, and improving processes. Christian is passionate about the environment and is committed to improving his trade waste knowledge and team processes.

What We've Learned: Trade Waste Insights from Co-Lab

Over the years, the CoLab Trade Waste Team has gained valuable insights into what makes trade waste management effective across our partner Councils. In the next couple of years many Councils will experience significant change in the waters space, with some finding they are now managing areas where trade waste has historically not been actively managed before.   This presentation shares key lessons learned from onboarding new councils including approaches to initial contact, what works and what doesn’t, and how we managed previously unmanaged grease traps. We also discuss our experiences using digital tools for inspections and reporting to streamline the process. 

Geoff Young

Geoff is the Executive Director of BPO and has 35 years’ experience and expertise in environmental management and monitoring systems. His areas of specialisation include wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) design, commissioning and operations, wastewater management systems, utility and infrastructure asset management, and wet-process production modelling for wastewater characterisation.

He is widely recognised as a leading practitioner of open channel flow measurement in New Zealand. These days, Geoff’s primary focus is business development and day-to-day operational management. He also remains actively involved in technical delivery and enjoys working hands-on in the field and laboratory. He continues to tackle complex challenges in water, groundwater, stormwater, and wastewater measurement, management, and treatment.

A Practical Demonstration of Dissolved Air Floatation (DAF)

The term DAF is commonly thrown around in discussions about Industrial waste water but for a lot of us, it is a black box term, it is technology that is used in many applications but we are not really sure what actually goes on in the black box and therefore don’t understand where it is applicable and where it is not. The objective of this demonstration is to reveal the science behind DAF. 

The chemistry of Coagulation of precipitable solids. The physics behind getting those solids to float! Geoff will be bringing the BPO lab scale DAF (a pile of glassware, a compressor and a stainless steel cylinder called Wes) for the demonstration. This is the equipment BPO uses when looking to confirm whether DAF is a viable technology or not for a specific waste stream. This demonstration won't make you an expert in DAF but it will give you an appreciation for the complexity of getting a DAF to perform or to be more exact, why DAF often doesn’t perform. Geoff has 29 years of experience with Dissolved Air Floatation predominately related to the Dairy Industry and understands both the strengths and the weaknesses of the process. He has also possessed his very own Eckenfelder cell (Wes) for 24 of those years revealing his closet nerd tendencies!