(1) The Board is hereby empowered and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, being the date of the passing of the North Shore Drainage Act 1951 be deemed to have been empowered, to prepare, adopt, construct, and put into operation a scheme or schemes of sewerage works for the whole or any part of the district and also to make and carry out such detailed investigations, whether technical or otherwise, as in the opinion of the Board may be or were necessary for enabling such scheme or schemes of sewerage works to be prepared, adopted, constructed, and put into operation as aforesaid.
(1A) The Board shall have the power to carry out the investigation or testing of any reticulation works if the investigation or testing is in any way connected with or is affecting the operations of the Board.
(2) Any such scheme of sewerage works shall make provision for, inter alia, and shall indicate in particular—
(e) the position of the outfall, or, if more than one, the positions of the outfalls, intended to be used for the disposal of all effluents; and
(f) the location and general design of all proposed treatment works, utilisation plants, and other sewerage works.
Provided that nothing in paragraph (e) of this subsection shall be deemed in any way to affect or derogate from the rights and powers conferred upon the Auckland Harbour Board by section 63 of this Act.
(3) The Board is also hereby empowered, and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid be deemed to have been empowered, to make, enter upon, and conduct all such further investigations, research and experiments as the Board thinks fit or has thought fit for the purpose of determining, after taking into consideration the technical and economic possibilities thereof, the extent (if any) to which it may be or was practicable to utilise, in the manufacture and production of organic fertilisers, sewage sludge produced from the treatment of sewage in the manner which it is recommended should be adopted for the district as hereinafter provided combined with such other organic wastes as may or might have from time to time become available to the Board for that purpose.
(4) The Board is also hereby empowered, and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid be deemed to have been empowered, to engage or retain at such remuneration as it shall think or has thought fit the services of such consulting engineers, industrial chemists, technicians, and other experts as, in the opinion of the Board, may be or were necessary in order to enable the investigations and the scheme of sewerage works referred to in this section to be respectively made, carried out, and prepared, adopted, constructed, and put into operation as aforesaid.
(5) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to prevent or preclude or shall be deemed at any time since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid to have prevented or precluded the Board from taking, with the approval of the Minister of Health,, the Minister of Works and Development, and the Auckland Harbour Board, such immediate action as the Board thinks or may have thought fit for the purpose of improving the standard of the effluent or effluents discharged from existing outfalls within the district.
(6) The Board shall cause to be and is hereby empowered, and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid be deemed to have been empowered, to put into operation all such proper, efficient, and approved methods of treatment of sewage within the district as are sufficient and effective to ensure that the waters of the Auckland Harbour and the Hauraki Gulf are not polluted by effluents discharged from any of the outfalls owned and operated by the Board to an extent amounting to an infringement of the standards and conditions for the time being fixed under section 42 of this Act.
(7) In addition to but without in any way derogating from all or any of the powers aforesaid, the Board shall have and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid be deemed to have had the sole right within the district—
(8) The Board shall have and shall at all times since the first day of December, nineteen hundred and fifty-one, aforesaid be deemed to have had the sole right within the drainage district to construct, control, and manage—
(9) The Board may also at any time and from time to time by notice in writing require any local authority to maintain and manage and to effect such alterations as the Board may consider advisable to any existing sewers, pumping stations, storage tanks, storage culverts, sewage treatment plants, and outfalls while they continue to be in use and operation:
Provided that nothing in this subsection shall be deemed in any way to affect or derogate from the rights and powers conferred upon the Auckland Harbour Board by section 63 of this Act.
(9A) Subject to subsection (9B) of this section, in the event of any such local authority failing to fulfil any requirement made under subsection (9) of this section within a period of 2 months after the date on which written notice to that effect was given to it by the Board, the Board may itself fulfil the requirement and recover the cost of doing so from the local authority.
(9B) Any local authority on which a notice has been served under subsection 9 of this section shall have the right to refer the matter to arbitration in accordance with section 79 of this Act.
(10) Nothing in this Act shall operate to prevent the establishment or maintenance of works for the treatment or disposal of trade wastes, refuse, or other substances which the Board's drainage system is not designed to receive or deal with or which the Board will not permit to be discharged into that system:
Provided that any such works shall be established and at all times maintained only upon and subject to such terms and conditions as shall from time to time be determined and prescribed by the Board:
Provided also that nothing in this section shall be deemed in any way to affect or derogate from the rights and powers conferred upon the Auckland Harbour Board by section 63 of this Act.
(11) Any storage tank, storage culvert, storage tunnel, outfall, sewage treatment plant, or sewer which has already been constructed within the drainage district by some local authority, and which is serving two or more local districts, may be taken over by and vested in the Board upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon between the Board and the local authority concerned, or, if they are unable to agree, then upon such terms and conditions as shall be settled by arbitration under the provisions of the Arbitration Act 1908.
Subsection (1A) was inserted, as from 27 November 1971, by section 6(1) North Shore Drainage Amendment Act 1971 (1971 No 11).
Subsection (2) was amended, as from 27 November 1971, by section 6(2) North Shore Drainage Amendment Act 1971 (1971 No 11).
Subsection (5) was amended, as from 21 September 1972, by section 6(1) Ministry of Transport Amendment Act 1972 (1972 No 4).
The words “Minister of Works and Development”
in subsection (1) were substituted, as from 21 November 1973, for the words “Minister of Works”
pursuant to section 2(4)(a) Public Works Amendment Act 1973 (1973 No 44).
Subsections (9A) and (9B) were inserted, as from 27 November 1971, by section 6(3) North Shore Drainage Amendment Act 1971 (1971 No 11).