Tiaki Wai day one: What to do with number two
Wednesday, 1 July 2026
ANALYSIS: Tiaki Wai officially swings into action today and the unglamorous issue of what to do with number two is high on the agenda for Wellington’s new water entity.
Be it a failed sewage plant at Moa Point that is discharging 70 million litres of untreated sewage daily off the south coast, or a leaking 18km sewerage pipe running alongside the harbour edge and costing up to $1 billion to replace – it is an organisation starting already up the proverbial creek.
But that is what it signed up for. It is arguably why Tiaki Wai chief executive Michael Brewster, on a $645,000 salary, earns more then Wellington’s mayor or New Zealand’s Prime Minister.
Tiaki Wai is the product of a National-led Government ditching Labour’s Three Water’s reforms and coming up with Local Water Done Well, which meant new entities could be set up to borrow heavily, charge households directly, and get on top of dealing with failing three water – tap, storm and waste – infrastructure.
Read more:
It is an issue playing out around most of New Zealand but Wellington, with its well-documented failures and needing an estimated $25b of spending over 30 years, is arguably the gnarliest.
Tiaki Wai, owned by Wellington City, Greater Wellington Regional, Porirua, and both Hutt Valley councils, takes over the running of the region’s water today from Wellington Water on Wednesday morning.
Most Wellington Water staff will roll over but there is a new boss and board. Extra Petone office space was recently rented at $600,000 a year with 100 more desks to house the surge in new staff.
Brewster this week outlined some of the big issues it was inheriting.
The Moa Point sewage plant had a catastrophic failure on February 4. It was unstaffed when a blockage saw rain water and sewage flood the plant with nobody there to limit damage by switching to a back-up pipe.
When a new sludge treatment plant is opened next door, that will be staffed round-the-clock, meaning the sewage plant will effectively be too. But there is expected to be time between the sewage and sludge plants opening.
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has been trying to get Tiaki Wai to staff the sewage plant 24-7 as soon as it opens and on June 15 got a letter from Brewster saying it would “very likely” be.
“The last thing we want is a repeat of what happened in February when the plant was unstaffed or back in 2002 when millions of bacteria-coated plastic rings were discharged into the sea and, again, no staff were on deck,” Genter said.
Tiaki Wai board chairperson Will Peet recently said that when he got a call about Moa Point he assumed it would be about the leaking 18km wastewater pipe from the 1960s that runs from Seaview, around the harbour to Pencarrow head and Cook Strait.
Brewster said replacement would cost $700 million to $1b.
“The focus on Seaview is not just about committing to the spending; it’s about undertaking the right investigations to find the best way forward in the interests of value for money,” the emailed statement said.
“If we do that right, we could save hundreds of millions of dollars, but we need more information.”
Tiaki Wai’s water services strategy also shows that, from 2027, it needs to start investigating what to do with biosolids – the end result of treated, dewatered sewage.
Options on the table include quarry rehabilitation, soil conditioner, or investing in new technology to turn it into biochar. The International Biochar Initiative describes biochar as a cost-effective substance that can be used to store carbon. It is also valuable material agriculture and other uses.
The first bills from Tiaki Wai will be sent directly to homeowners from late July to early August. But with that, council rates will drop. The new bill will average about $200 a month, rising to $517 within a decade.
Tiaki Wai plans to install water metres in the future, meaning home-owners will have some control over their bills but some costs – such as waste and storm waters – will not be based on volume.