Whanganui District Council resuming work on troublesome Nixon St wastewater replacement project

Stage one of the project ran into trouble around eight metres under Nixon St. Photo / Bevan Conley

The intersection of Nixon and Moana streets in Whanganui East will be closed for a month as work to replace a 113-year-old wastewater main gets back under way.

It marks the start of stage two of the project, will which eventually replace a 991-metre length of pipe that runs from Anzac Parade to the five-road junction at the Raine St, Wakefield St, Nixon St, Burton Avenue and Duncan St intersection.

Stage one, which stretched from Anzac Parade to Moana St, was hampered by the state-of-the-art boring machine jamming on ancient tōtara found around eight metres under the surface.

The timber, along with poor soil quality, ate through time and budget and required unbudgeted funding worth $1.5m to be signed off by the Whanganui District Council to get the job finished by 2024.

Last December, Whanganui District Council senior stormwater engineer Kritzo Venter told the Chronicle the boring machine wouldn’t be required for stage two as the pipe wasn’t so deep.

A more traditional open trenching method will be used.

The intersection is set to be closed to through traffic from 7am on February 12 until 5pm on March 8.

Detour signs will be in place but residents of the area affected and emergency services will have access at all times

Mike Tweed is an assistant news director and multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle. Since starting in March 2020, he has dabbled in everything from sport to music. At present his focus is local government, primarily the Whanganui District Council.