Weather: Potential wastewater spill, beach access damaged in Omanu

A damaged walkway in Omanu.

A health warning has been issued after a potential wastewater spill in Tauranga’s inner harbour.

Tauranga City Council said the heavy rain event on Sunday night and Monday morning put pressure on the city’s stormwater and wastewater networks and potentially created a peak flow exceeding Chapel St’s ability to send treated wastewater to Te Maunga and the Outfall.

Some areas of the city received between 40 and 60 millimetres of rain in one hour, with fire crews called to 10 properties for flooding.

Tauranga City Council drainage services manager Radleigh Cairns said the council had an extreme weather emergency discharge consent for exactly this type of situation.

“For around 20 to 30 minutes, Chapel St potentially discharged treated wastewater to the harbour area by Maxwells Rd.

“This was on an outgoing tide and, given the significant stormwater inputs from urban areas into the harbour at the same time, is unlikely to have had a significant environmental impact,” he said.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Toi Te Ora were informed and signage was placed in potentially impacted areas as a precautionary measure.

“We encourage the community to follow Toi Te Ora’s advice to not swim in areas impacted by heavy rain events for at least 48 hours due to the potential for contamination.

“Water quality sampling will be undertaken from today.”

Meanwhile, a beach walkway at Omanu was damaged after Sunday night’s downpour.

Photos supplied to the Bay of Plenty Times show significant damage to the walkway on Surf Rd.

Tape has been put up around the damaged areas.