Illegal sewage pipes lead to faecal contamination at Auckland beach

Tuesday, 16 March 2021

Residents in the Auckland suburb of Remuera say they're being plagued by dead eels, sewage floating down streams and smells so pungent it makes them gag.

Century-old illegal sewage pipes have led to faeces contaminating the water at Auckland’s Hobson Bay.

In April 2020, testing of water from a stream that connected to Hobson Bay showed 200,000 units of E coli, which was 700 times higher than public health guidelines allow. The stream's strong sewage smell had been leaving residents “gagging”.

An ongoing investigation by the Auckland Council has so far identified five private properties and three commercial properties with illegal sewerage connections.

Ōrākei Ward councillor Desley Simpson said Hobson Bay had among the “worst water quality” of any Auckland beaches, and was “subject to ongoing health warnings”.

A public health warning is in place at Hobson Bay.

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A community association chairman said the situation is “unacceptable”.

The Auckland Council’s Safeswim programme manager, Nick Vigar, said most of the illegal connections have been fixed, but he expects to find more as the investigation progresses.

Vigar said connections were “simple errors” and had been in place for hundreds of years.

The connections were unknown to the property owners.

“The sheer number of the ones we found in Newmarket is an indication of how complex the drainage network is,” Vigar said.

“Even one wastewater connection is significant, potentially enough to put a stream over public health guidelines.”

Alastair Bell, the chairman of the Ōrākei Community Association, said he was disgusted to hear of the situation.

“It is unacceptable for sewage to be leaching down hills and local creeks into Hobson Bay, or anywhere.”

It raised the “bigger question of how much densification any neighbourhood or suburb can endure”, he said.

“It doesn’t make sense for Auckland’s growth to be addressed by additional houses, apartments and shops built on old infrastructure, be it pipes or roads or trains.”

Remuera Residents Association chairman Iain Valentine said the 10-year Auckland Council budget should “support this issue at the highest possible level of investment”.

A council team will be working for the next three months solely focusing on Hobson Bay, but this could last up to a year, Vigar said.