Another review launched into Wellington wastewater plant operations

Thursday, 30 May 2024

Ocean swimmer Michelle Warshawsky is sick of swimming in wastewater at Tītahi Bay, north of Wellington.

Wellington Water is launching another review into the region’s metropolitan wastewater treatment plants, less than three years after the previous one.

It follows a slew of complaints about the four plants at Moa Point, Karori, Seaview and Porirua, including foul smells, discharges into the sea, non-compliance, and delayed sewage leak notifications.

The last review into the plants’ operations in October 2021, by Roly Frost and Raveen Jaduram, concluded the relationships between the plant’s multinational operator Veolia and Wellington Water were “dysfunctional”.

The new review, conducted again by Frost and Jaduram, would identify any “immediate improvements to the operating models” and any obstacles to “achieving” long-term compliance to its resource consent, according to a paper submitted to the Porirua City Council’s wastewater treatment plant and landfill joint committee meeting on Tuesday.

Tītahi Bay’s Michelle Warshawsky was among the people who swam in Tītahi Bay unaware of a wastewater discharge at the nearby treatment plant. (File photo)

Wellington Water’s network management general manager Jeremy McKibbin said there had been “many improvements” since the 2021 review and the new review’s objective was to “assess” why the plants continued to have issues meeting resource consents and identify improvements.

“Wellington Water and Veolia acknowledge there are challenges with the plant assets and their current condition,” he said. “The ageing assets at the treatment plants are a key contributor to the non-compliance with resource consents.

“Most of the risks are currently being addressed through work to renew the assets. This will take time, as the work must be done while the plants are running and within the available council budgets.”

There are regular complaints about foul smells at the Seaview Wastewater Treatment Plant. (File photo)

Meanwhile, another report submitted to Tuesday’s joint committee meeting revealed a catalogue of communication failures from Wellington Water and Veolia in April’s discharge at Porirua, which took more than 18 hours to notify.

It resulted in swimmers at nearby Tītahi Bay, including competitors in a triathlon, wading into sewage-filled waters.

A report revealed a catalogue of communication failures from Wellington Water and Veolia when it failed to publicly notify a sewage discharge at the Porirua Wastewater Treatment Plant in April. (File photo)

The report said on Veolia’s part, there had been “confusion” about whether the discharge constituted a notifiable event and it did not follow the protocol on discharge notification. Wellington Water’s notification template – recently rewritten in ‘plain English’ for streamlined communication – had insufficient information and incorrectly said the discharge was due to non-existent rain.

McKibbin apologised for the non-notification at the meeting, saying Wellington Water is updating notification templates and improving new signage.

“I can assure you that we are following through our learnings from the event,” he said.

Porirua’s mayor Anita Baker said she was “appalled” at the findings from the report into the April discharge. She was unaware of the discharge for 16 hours.

“I was at the triathlon … telling people to come out of the water,” she said. “The fact that we had failed at the plant and then we failed at Wellington Water … I was a very grumpy mayor that day.”