Leak losing 11 litres of water a minute, damaging suburban road

Tuesday, 6 June 2023

A leak on Sunrise Blvd in Tawa has become progressively worse, losing 11 litres a minute.

Back in March, Sunrise Blvd in Tawa was awash with leaks, including a couple that flooded the trees and berms that line the suburban street.

Two months on, two of the leaks have gone but one remains and Wellington Water appears to have abandoned it.

The leak originally had water seeping through cracks in the asphalt and flowing down the street. Now that asphalt has sunken and cracked under the relentless stream of water.

Resident Susan Cottle said she had reported the leak along with several of her neighbours. She’d been told that Wellington Water had investigated back in late March.

Since then, she said she had heard nothing.

“It’s just wasteful. There must be thousands of litres going every day.

“It’s not just the water, it’s damaging the road. Leaks have left holes in the tarmac and bits of debris on the street.”

The same leak on Sunrise Blvd back in March. Since then, the asphalt has sunken and cracked.

In a statement, Wellington Water head of customer experience Lisa Strickland said that, other priority leaks permitting, a crew was scheduled to fix the leak this week

“It was initially reported to us in January as a low to medium priority job, but we’ve recently been out to undertake a further visual inspection, finding the leak was losing approximately 11 litres of water per minute.

Residents say the leak was investigated back in March but have heard nothing since.

“This is over the water loss threshold of an urgent priority leak.”

Strickland said they were grateful to residents whocontacted them when they saw a new leak or the deterioration of an existing one.

“There are a lot of leaks on the public drinking water network and due to the current resources available to us, we simply can’t fix them all.

“We must prioritise where crews go to make the best use of our resources.”

Strickland said crews worked in a very “reactive environment” and could be pulled away to work on more urgent leaks, delaying a planned repair.

“Often, the crews will be scheduled for a job, but can be called away at the drop of a hat if a more urgent job comes up.”

With 40% of Wellington’s water seeping away through leaks, we’re demanding action from authorities. Each week, we’ll highlight the region’s worst. Email news@thepost.co.nz.