The stink over a Lower Hutt suburb that has locals gagging

Sunday, 20 October 2024

Wellington Water chief adviser Wastewater Steve Hutchison explains plans to reduce odour at the Seaview treatment plant.

Trapped between two of Wellington’s trendy seaside suburbs, Petone and Eastbourne, Seaview is the work horse of the Hutt.

Oil tanks, light industry and commercial businesses operate alongside quiet pockets of residential housing.

And then there are the poo ponds, as the locals call them.

For 20 years, the Lower Hutt waste water treatment plant has left a stench over the suburb; the smell even has its own Facebook page ˗ Stop the Stench! put a lid on the Seaview Waste Treatment Plant.

But a recent fire, followed by mechanical failure, has made the smell worse, and locals are demanding action.

People are reporting getting headaches, gagging when they go outside and locking themselves in their own home.

Ricky Eastham is one of many local workers affected by the smell of Seaview waste water treatment plant

Local Mark Prince says he has had to stop taking his lunch to work due to the foul odour coming from the poo ponds.

“I can’t eat it when smelling that smell, so I fast during the day and it’s not healthy but it’s what I do now.”

Anthony Coomer, another Lower Hutt local, posted on Stop the Stench that when he arrived at work, the smell was awful.

“The smell is so thick, rank and disgusting that it comes through the car windows, and the office windows and you can taste it on your tongue before you can smell it.”

People from suburbs seven or eight kilometres to the north have been reporting the odour.

Wellington Water is the local water entity, responsible for the plant.

Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry admits the smell is so bad some locals can no longer enjoy their backyard, or open their windows on a sunny day.

But he is offering little hope of an early fix.

Barry recently caused a storm when he posted on social media that the odour problem may never be resolved. “You simply can’t polish a turd.”

Barry told the Sunday Star-Times that his comments were an attempt to be honest with those who have to live with the stench.

The Seaview Treatment Plant is the source of a smell that can be smelt as far away as Naenae

The plant is old and tired and increasingly prone to breaking down, he said.

The two councils ˗ Upper Hutt and Hutt City ˗ responsible for the plant are investing $13m to reduce the impact of odour and a further $225m, over the next 10 years, to upgrade the plant.

But some of the work planned is a decade away and in the short term, there is no guarantee it would fix the foul smell.

The waste water treatment plant was sited next door to the Kokiri marae in Seaview. Star Olsen says the smell “hits you in the face” some days.

“The reality is much of the plant’s equipment requires ongoing maintenance and renewal - both planned and unplanned. This work needs to be phased to keep the plant operational, and it will take time,” Barry said.

Barry said “years of patchwork repairs and deferred investment” had resulted in the plant being unable to deal with routine maintenance without causing major disruption.

The stench is also having an impact on nearby neighbour the Kōkiri Marae. Spokesperson Star Olsen said the smell is getting worse and they dread a wind change.

“The smell just hits you in the face.”

Locals spoken to by the Star Times reported being fed up.

Amanda Bartley, the operations manager at Croft Combined Carriers said she had complained to the council but it had made no difference.

“Think of, maybe, how many hundreds of people go to the toilet, into a pond, and it nearly gets flushed but it just festers, and that just wafts all day every day.”

The smell is obvious on at least three days out of five.

“It’s the most disgusting thing. When it’s bad, its bad.”

Wellington Water is spending $13m to reduce odour issues at the Seaview plant.

Mark Prince, a local mechanic, said the smell is a mix of wet dog poo and vomit.

“If I could throw up, I would.”

He said the smell seemed to be getting worse. “Apparently they were changing filters or something. I think they put old filters in, but it’s getting worse.”

Prince didn’t accept the excuse that there was nothing that council could do. It wasn’t because they couldn’t do anything, but that they didn’t want to.

Problems with the sludge dryer are causing ongoing odour issues.

Ricky Eastham, who owns Podium Concrete and has a warehouse right by the plant said the smell is hard to ignore.

“It’s probably like someone’s had a bad curry.

“It seemed like they hadn’t done anything, because you could smell it for days.”

But Hutt’s Seaview problem is also reflective of a broader national problem.

Almost across the board, local authorities are grappling with the problem of addressing years of infrastructure neglect as successive administrations kicked the can down the road.

There are now moves to set up local government water entities, which would allow them to borrow against their water assets.

“The reality is that underinvestment in water infrastructure has left cities and towns, including ours, playing catch-up,” says Barry.

Wellington Water network general manager Jeremy McKibbin inspects the bark used to deal with odour at the Seaview Wastewater Treatment Plan.

“Today’s odour issue could be tomorrow’s boil water notice, or next week’s raw sewage discharge.”

But finding agreement on local water entities could be as fraught as the previous government’s contentious Three Waters proposal.

And in the meantime, the future of the Seaview plant is murky.

Hutt City Councils strategic advisor Bruce Hodgins said the plant is coming to the end of its life.

The plant is in a low lying area that could be under water by the end of the century.

One option could be a regional solution, as the equivalent plants in both Wellington and Porirua are not in great shape either, but that would require years of planning and would presumably come with an astronomical bill.

The situation re Seaview is complicated by the need to put in a new long outfall pipe to Pencarrow, where treated effluent is discharged into Cook Strait.

Office staff at Croft Combined Carrier use air sanitiser to assist on smelly days to help with the pong.

The Hutt councils have been aware of the need for a replacement pipe for decades. The cost is expected to be eye watering and without Government funding, it is hard to envisage the two councils being able to afford it.

The recent report by Dame Kerry Prendergast looking at how a Wellington water entity could operate, supports the view that the treatment plants days could be numbered.

Her report noted the risk of “network fault runaway” which means assets are failing at a rate beyond our ability to fund and fix the problem. Referring to all the treatment plants, the report said there was an immediate risk of structural failure to the wastewater network.

Quoting Hutt City Council’s strategic advisor Bruce Hodgins, the report said the council is investing $1.6b over the next ten years and had increased rates by 16.9%, but a lot more money was needed.

“The wastewater treatment plant is coming to the end of its working life and requires another $225 million in investment over the next 10 years.”

He predicted it would take 20 years to resolve the wide ranging issues facing the plant.

“Although only about 20 years old, many critical components have deteriorated with equipment failures severely limiting the plant’s ability to manage any additional flows or to realistically undertake any significant maintenance programmes.”

Barry agrees that fixing the odour issues at the plant would be a long and complex process.

Given its age and condition, he said odour issues would be a problem for neighbours until the necessary upgrades are completed.

“Even when that work is complete, there will still be a level of odour that exists due to the way the treatment plant was consented and built.”

But for locals, a fix can’t come soon enough.

– Additional reporting by Ffion Heale.