Concerns weather could push raw sewage towards Wellington’s shoreline

By RNZ

Wellington Water is concerned wild weather could increase the likelihood of raw sewage being pushed towards the shoreline.

Progress is being made at the Moa Point Wastewater Treatment Plant to clean it, mitigate the odour, and inspect the damage.

Nearly 80% of the equipment inside the plant was damaged in a meltdown on February 4.

Megalitres of raw sewage have spilled into Cook Strait since, but not through the short outfall pipe since the following day.

However, Wellington Water is warning that wastewater will have to be discharged through that pipe if there is increased flow into the plant.

Untreated water was leaking onto the capital's south coast beaches due to the Moa Point Treatment Plant flooding and being turned off. Photo / RNZ, Samuel Rillstone

MetService has placed heavy swell warnings, strong orange wind warnings and a heavy rain watch on some parts of Wellington for Sunday and Monday.

Wellington Water previously said the removal of sewage from the plant and cleaning its rooms were ongoing.

It was also working on understanding the state of the plant’s equipment and operations.

“This assessment will take some time, and we still expect there will be an extended outage at the plant.”

- RNZ