Effluent could have been leaching into two Queenstown rivers late last year, it has emerged as more details are released about an investigation into a troubled wastewater plant.
The Otago Regional Council revealed this week it issued the Queenstown Lakes District Council five infringement notices this month alone in relation to the alleged improper discharge of contaminants at its Shotover wastewater treatment plant.
All 10 infringement notices issued due to incidents at the plant last year related to the same concerns, Mrs Vercoe said.
"The infringement notices all cover the same issues, which is the discharge not being contained within the consented disposal field.
"Our investigation, which is expected to conclude soon, is still under way.
"We can not release further specific details at present because if further action were to proceed, current information could potentially become evidence."
Earlier this week, the council refused to release email correspondence that could be linked to its investigation due to the amount of time it would take staff to review and redact the large amount of material they had collected on the matter.
However, the lack of information the ORC has to date released about its highest priority investigation has caused concern among regional councillors.
In emails leaked to the Otago Daily Times, some councillors called on staff for more transparency on the matter.
Chairwoman Cr Gretchen Robertson said "as much should be released as possible" under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987 especially because public interest in the matter was high.
Cr Kate Wilson said she was "not impressed" by the staff's response to the ODT official information request.
"On a matter that is so highly important to the public, the local community and mana whenua I would hope we take a more proactive response than the approach taken by staff to date."
Cr Alexa Forbes said she too was worried.
"There's huge public interest, and we are not offering transparency. I don't think the potential prosecution excuse is valid either.
"QLDC has been delinquent preferring development beyond its infrastructure capabilities and people need to know how we are dealing with that."
Cr Michael Laws said it was time the public was allowed to know "the true nature of that delinquency and the reasons that we see this repeat behaviour and ongoing problems".
"The question is: is QLDC's wastewater treatment plant broken?"
The QLDC did not respond to questions yesterday, including whether its wastewater treatment plant was broken.
Mrs Vercoe said yesterday the ORC was "always conscious of the need for transparency".
"In this case, given the possibility of enforcement action, we need to take care not to affect operational requirements for our staff.
"We ask the public for patience as staff work on progressing this matter and give an assurance that we will provide information as soon as we are able."\
Aspects of the ODT's official information request were being reconsidered, she said.
