Nandor Tanczos

There are a few things in last week’s Beacon report on the Matatā Waste Water scheme, “Gloves come off over Mātata sewerage”, and subsequent correspondence by Brendan Horan, “Residents deserve full facts”, Beacon letters, September 10, that need clarifying.

The Mayor’s Report has not been censored or hidden from the public. It is available on the council website and anyone can look it up. It just couldn’t get a seconder to be received as an official council report.

That report was not actually from the Taskforce on Water. It was the mayor’s personal view. The fact that it is full of words like “I informed the meeting...” and “At my request....” makes that clear. The mayor is entitled to express his opinion, as is anyone, but not to present it as a technical report to council.

The Mayor’s Taskforce on Water was not intended by council to advise on the Matatā scheme in any case as it does not have relevant background either. One member explicitly says that “Wastewater treatment is not an expertise of mine”.

Others have specialist knowledge in energy network management and the like, but not in municipal sewerage.

The advice that council is relying on is based on years of monitoring and analysis by independent scientists whose work has been peer reviewed by ESR (at the request of the mayor). That review confirmed the findings of those studies.

This is not about a reasonable disagreement about scientific data. We have the data, it has been independently peer reviewed and it is clear.

It is now time to act on this issue, which has been unresolved for far too long.

Trying to kick the can down the road, again, is not the kind of leadership the district needs.

■ Mayor Victor Luca responds:

I never said that my report, which appears in the public agenda of the 4 September Infrastructure & Planning Committee meeting, was censored. It is public.

The report Mr Tanczos refers to contains a summary of my views and those of the Mayor’s Taskforce for Water (MTFW).

The appendix to the report contains the feedback of the individual MTFW group members.

My view is not personal, it is professional. I have been a research scientist and research leader in the area of radioactive waste management and environmental science for 22 years of my 30-plus year science career. I have some serious scientific credentials.

Readers can refer to my website and even download my entire CV:

https://www.votevictorluca.com/resume

Mr Tanczos has no significant scientific or engineering credentials and is not qualified to judge mine.

I wrote a review of the results of the Environmental Monitoring Programme (EMP) in the first half of 2024 in order to better understand what had been presented to council in workshops over several years of monitoring the environmental situation in Matatā.

My review was of data available to me at the time. I sent my review to the team leader at ESR, who is New Zealand’s foremost expert in environmental microbiology and author of the 2012 ESR report.

He agreed to review my document free of charge as is normally the case in the peer-review of science publications. I have authored over 100 such peer-reviewed publications. WDC took a more formal approach to the peer-review and that came at a cost. The team leader’s comment on my review was:

“We at ESR have been doing the Fecal Source Tracking analysis that is in your report – which it’s not blowing smoke at you to say your report is impressive.”

Mr Tanczos should address the data in the EMP and in my report. I’d be happy to hear Mr Tanczos’ explanation of the figure in my report, which he has so far never commented on.

Anyone wanting more detail is welcome to come and see me.