You can go to the loo now: Napier City Council thanks residents as wastewater threat passes

Red Bridge Tukituki River on Wednesday. Rainfall was some of the heaviest in 13 months, and caused wastewater woes in Napier. Photo / File

Napier's worst wastewater worries have gone with the storm as the council advises it's back to normal with toilet and wastewater water disposal in the city.

The all-clear comes after 24 hours of warnings to residents to limit toilet flushes, bathing, showering and dishwashing because of waste water overloading which could have forced an emergency discharge into the Ahuriri Estuary, and popular recreation area Pandora Pond.

Thus no discharges were needed, during what was the heaviest rainfall in more than 13 months in parts of Hawke's Bay, in particular the Napier-Hastings area.

While two-day rainfalls exceeding 100mm were reported in Napier, the official Metservice details, from the Hawke's Bay Airport recording station, recorded 71.6mm, which was 4.6mm more than the whole of September and close to three times the 26mm in the drier-than-normal August.

In Hastings, Metservice recorded 131.6mm of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday, a two-day rainfall greater than any other whole month since September last year, when there was similar heavy rain in the first week of the month.

Council communications staff said today no further advisory had been issued, along with a "HUGE thank you" on the council facebook page.

"Your efforts yesterday – skipping baths, letting the yellow mellow, leaving dishes until the morning – took some pressure off our wastewater network, which meant you helped us avoid a discharge into the estuary," as post said.

But it still came with a warning, saying: "Now that the sun is out, just a reminder that after any heavy rainfall event, please avoid contact (both people and dogs) with waterways and Pandora Pond for three days."

It advised checking for updates at the Land, Air Water Aotearoa website bit.ly/LAWA-Updatesus

The Council any problems should still be reported to the council, staff of which had dealt with numerous issues on Wednesday including toilets not draining properly, and overflowing from manholes.

A council contractor was used to pump water into a tanker to alleviate flooding around a Pirimai intersection.