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Equipment at the Mangawhai wastewater pumpstation has been repaired after a series of failures last month led to a temporary health warning for the harbour for 10 days.
A power failure occurred at the outfall pumpstation on Thelma Road South at night on April 8, and a back-up battery, which powers an alarm, also failed, a Kaipara District Council spokesperson said.
The station has eight hours storage capacity before overflowing, but because the alarm had failed, the overnight on-duty operator was not alerted.
The overflow was only identified the following morning. A sucker truck was dispatched to clean up residual wastewater and sanitise the affected area.
As a result of the incident, some wastewater was expected to flow into Mangawhai Harbour, and council erected health warning signs at entry points to the estuary.
The warning was lifted on April 19.
“We assessed the equipment and the need for repairs to the electrical cabinet for the pump station was identified,” operations manager for infrastructure services Helen Ronaldson said.
“These have been completed. After all assessments were completed, we tested the pump station’s reaction to an outage and it continued to work as it should.”
