Wellington sewage spill: Impact on beachside business laid bare
Wednesday, 4 March 2026
Amid a Moa Point information vacuum, one set of data shows the dire consequences the fiasco is having on local businesses.
Dot Loves Data spending data, using ANZ transactions, shows Lyall Bay hospitality spending down 40% this February compared to February 2025, while other retail such as apparel and hairdressing is down 24%. Big box retailers are down just 4.2%.
Dot Loves Data director Justin Lester believed business would start to bounce back after mayor Andrew Little last week swam in Lyall Bay to declare beaches open again – but warned people to check Lawa.org.nz for water quality first. When The Post visited Island Bay about midday on Sunday, it was all-but deserted despite warm, calm weather.
Lawa was on Tuesday saying all of Wellington was unsuitable for swimming – a regular warning after rain. Extra warnings were in place for the south coast with a warning raw sewage could still be ejected just 5m off the coast, instead of down a 1.8km pipe, during rainfall.
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The Moa Point Sewage Treatment Plant had a catastrophic failure on February 4 – exactly four weeks ago today – when millions of litres of waste and rain water inundated the plant, with early estimates of 60% of the plant flooded and 80% of equipment damaged.
About 70 millions of litres of untreated wastewater, including sewage, continues to be ejected daily. There has been no firm date on a fix – or even confirmation of what caused the crisis.
Questions Wellington Water refused to answer on Tuesday included whether it had discovered the cause of the February 4 disaster and, if so, whether the issue had been fixed. It refused to reveal the extent of damage to the Moa Point plant or how much equipment would need to be replaced. It would not say if it had begun to order replacement equipment.
Local Government Minister Simon Watts on February 16 ordered a Crown review into the fiasco saying, “we need timely findings and recommendations”.
But Watts’ office, which last week said the terms of reference for the review would come in the “next few weeks”, on Tuesday again said it would be “in the next few weeks”.
“I understand and share the public’s interest in finding out why the Moa Point plant failed. I am appointing a Crown Review Team to investigate the causes of the failure,” Watts said in an emailed statement.
“Until they have been able to get on with their work and report back to me, it is not appropriate for me to make comment on the causes of the failure.”
Little, who on February 12 wrote to Watts asking for a wide-ranging review with regular public updates, last week said Watts has told him a Crown review team could be set up quickly as “Wellingtonians are keen to know as soon as possible the cause of the plant failure”.
“I’m not expecting to say with accuracy and confidence what the cause is, until the Government’s Crown review team starts their job,” he said on Monday. He had asked for an early report on the cause.
“Wellington Water is in there. They are assessing the damage, evaluating what the repair might look like. And so decisions about that will come up in the next few weeks.”