Wellington Mayor Andrew Little reveals what was achieved during his meeting with Luxon. Video / Ryan Bridge TODAY
Wellington Water’s boss has conceded the organisation may have missed early warning signs before a “catastrophic” wastewater plant failure, but officials are refusing to elaborate on what those warnings were or how they went unnoticed.
Raw sewage has been flowing off the coast of Wellington since the Moa PointWastewater Treatment plant flooded last week.
The wastewater is now being screened to remove wipes and sanitary products, but remains untreated before entering the water from the long outfall pipe, in what has been described as an “environmental disaster”.
Speaking to RNZ on Monday, Wellington Water chief executive Pat Dougherty revealed he held concerns the organisation had missed early warning signs there were troubles at the plant.
“Over the last three or four months, I think there’s been a couple of incidents that I suspect may have been early warning signs that we missed,” Dougherty said.
Asked to elaborate further, Dougherty said there had been recent overflows of one of the channels that treats wastewater with UV lamps.
Only one of the plant’s two channels has been operating while work has been underway to repair bulbs in the other, he said.
“I think over the last three or four months, the channel that’s been operating has overflowed slightly, and I think that’s been put down to too much flow going into the plant and not enough through the bypass,” he said.
“But now I’m wondering whether that was a symptom of the problem that struck us on Wednesday night.”
The Herald asked to speak to Dougherty about the potentially missed early indications, but Wellington Water said it now had to refer all queries to Wellington City Council.
The council said Doughtery would not be available for an interview.
Asked to comment, the council also refused to provide a statement from Dougherty or Wellington Water.
Wellington Water CEO, Pat Dougherty, and Wellington Mayor, Andrew Little, speaking about the sewage spill on Thursday last week.
Mayor Andrew Little would also not be interviewed about the claims, but said in a statement it was something that would be investigated by the planned independent investigation.
“All of this, the possible causes or possible signs, are a matter for the inquiry when it is set up. It is not helpful to speculate and these issues need to be carefully examined independently,” Little said.
“The point of the inquiry is to work through the causes and how we prevent a failure of this magnitude happening again,” he said.
“Any other comments on the causes, signs and the response outside of an inquiry run the risk of being self-serving.”
More details of whether signs of a looming failure were obvious may not be answered for months as the inquiry is worked through.
The Government has agreed to an independent inquiry into the situation, after Little met with the Prime Minister and Local Government Minister on Monday.
Little had been assessing options on the type of inquiry, suggesting either a ministerial inquiry or a Crown review, before reporting back to Local Government Minister Simon Watts.
Speaking to media this afternoon, Watts said he had now received a letter from Little on his preferred inquiry option.
He said he had not yet had a chance to review the letter, but would have more to say in the coming days.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.
