SEWAGE: PLAN FLAWED

The Nelson City Council is proposing to spend up to 54 million dollars to upgrade the Bells Island sewage plant.
Both the council and the Nelson Mail have repeatedly pushed a corporate spin to justify such large expenditure. That spin being, that the Waimea Estuary section of the pipeline is, "in imminent danger of total failure."
However that spin was challenged on the basis that, if that was in fact the danger or risk being faced, then why was council not immediately undertaking urgent maintainence by way of repair or replacement, and at the probable cost of only a couple of million dollars or so.
Council then admitted that, that was not in fact the risk being faced, and that automatic shut down systems were in place to prevent such catastrophic spills.
Council also admitted, that the real risk, actually being faced, was that if sometime in the future the pipeline ever did somehow or other fail, then no duplicate pipeline existed as a back up against that future contingency that may or may not ever happen.
Therefore the risk currently being faced is, no different, or no greater, a risk than has always been present, since Bells Island was first commissioned.
If that is so, then the risk analysis underpinning the proposed 54 million dollar expenditure can only be regarded as deeply flawed, and the consequential risk benefit analysis, and cost benefit analysis, must both be equally as deeply flawed.
Alternatively, if any risk of failure does actually exist, then a proper risk analysis would seem to indicate, that the project being proposed is the wrong project to address that risk.
Despite media reporters being present during submissions on this pivotal issue, this crucial information appears to have been supressed, and kept from the public.