Waiwhetū Stream ‘disgrace’ says leading ecologist

Saturday, 14 September 2024

Mike Joy says continuing discharges in to the Waiwhetū Stream are a disgrace and Greater Wellington needs to do more to hold Wellington Water accountable.

Greater Wellington needs to get tough with Wellington Water and prosecute it over ongoing discharges into Lower Hutt’s Waiwhetū Stream.

That’s the view of leading fresh water ecologist Mike Joy, a research fellow at Victoria University.

The Seaview Wastewater Treatment Plant regularly discharges “treated effluent” into the stream during heavy rain or when there are technical issues at the plant.

In a response to questions from The Post, Greater Wellington confirmed that Wellington Water was“non-compliant” with the effluent-quality guidelines it operated under.

For decades the Hutt City Council has discharged treated effluent into the Waiwhetū Stream. Local Māori and Friends of the Waiwhetū Stream say that has to stop.

Greater Wellington strategy, policy and regulation director Fathima Iftikar said discussions were underway to find a long-term solution.

Since 2021, Greater Wellington had issued a number of abatement notices and formal warnings to Wellington Water, its operators Veolia, and the Upper and Hutt city councils which own the plant.

In September 2022, for instance, abatement notices were issued to immediately cease the discharge of non-compliant effluent into the stream and to continue to comply thereafter.

Wellington Water posts regular warnings about the Waiwhetū Stream.

Infringements notices were issued due to the high “faecal coliform effluent” counts found in the stream in April 2023 and November of that year.

In July, Te Ātiawa Taranaki Whānui chief executive Kara Puketapu-Dentice and Merilyn Merrett, from Friends of Waiwhetū Stream, agreed that discharges of effluent into the stream must stop.

Greater Wellington supplied The Post with two reports that contained technical data on water quality in the stream and the level of contamination.

Asked to analyse the data, Joy described it as disgraceful and said it showed the claim used by Wellington Water that it was discharging fully treated effluent was misleading.

The late Teri Puketapu spent decades fighting for the health of the Waiwhetū Stream.

“To call it treated is just bullshit. To say it is treated when it is discharged into the stream and the Hutt River and all the beaches (in Wellington harbour), it is just disgusting.”

What was happening in the stream mirrored what was happening nationwide in waterways due to underinvestment in basic infrastructure, he said.

Given that it had been going on for decades, he said that was no excuse and Greater Wellington should be prosecuting Wellington Water.

“No one else would get away with this. Farmers would be prosecuted.”

A warning that taking shellfish is not always safe. (File photo)

It was clear that Wellington Water was breaching its consent, he said.

“To say it is treated means nothing. It just means the lumps have been taken out … to say it is safe is just a lie.”

The stream discharges into the Hutt River, which Joy said, was popular with fishers.

The faecal levels, E coli and zinc found in the stream made it unsafe to take eels, whitebait or shellfish, he said.

It also raised questions about how safe it was to swim in the harbour.

The discharge point into the Waiwhetū Stream.

The situation would not change without the pressure of prosecutions and Joy said fines could be used to upgrade the treatment plant.

“Doing nothing incentivises them to do nothing. Imagine if you had parking wardens going around the Hutt handing out smiley faces.”

Wellington Water network manager Jeremy McKibbin said there had been nine discharges into the stream this year. On four occasions, the discharges were continuous for more than 24 hours but were still considered one discharge.

Eight of the discharges were authorised under consent conditions, he said. The remaining discharge was also an authorised wet weather discharge. But during the discharge there was a mains power outage for approximately 35 minutes.

“For that period of time, partially treated wastewater mixed with fully treated wastewater was discharged to the Pencarrow outfall and the Waiwhetu Stream.”

McKibbin acknowledged the situation was not ideal but there were no ”practicable options“.

He said the plant “is not consistently meeting its design standards” and that was contributing to the high faecal count.

In July, The Post reported that local Māori were fed up with the ongoing discharges, which the local iwi had been complaining about for 25 years.

The chief executive of Te Ātiawa Taranaki Whānui, Kara Puketapu-Dentice, said Māori across New Zealand were angered by the ongoing lack of respect for waterways like Waiwhetū.

The stream, he said, had once fed his iwi but was now an industrial drain.

Friends of Waiwhetū Stream deputy chair Rachel Tallon said the high fecal count and E coli in the stream were a concern.

In summer children swam and played in it and she was also aware that some people fished for eels and whitebait.

As well as discharges from the treatment, untreated wastewater from the ageing sewer network was infiltrating the stormwater network and entering the stream.

She shared Joy’s concerns about the overall health of the stream and the use of the word “treated” to describe the overflows. “It is misleading, it is not a word I would use.”

The Friends would like to see the three councils and Wellington Water work together to find a long-term solution.

Greater Wellington chair Daran Ponter said prosecuting the councils and Wellington Water was a costly option for ratepayers. The best solution was for the two city councils to either fund the work required to stop the discharges or build a new plant.