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Raw sewage flooded across a driveway and path onto the main road just north of Warkworth’s Hill Street junction for nearly four hours on September 22.
Watercare blamed the blockage and resulting smelly brown overflow on a combination of factors, including a build-up of fats and oranges in the pipes.
However, a local business owner says it is just the latest in a series of raw sewage leaks that end up in the Kowhai Stream and the Mahurangi River, and it’s not good enough.
He says he has official records of up to 180 cubic metres of raw sewage being discharged into the waterways via a pipe at the start of Elizabeth Street, including one overflow in June that contained infectious norovirus.
“It’s Watercare’s dirty little secret,” he says. “They deny discharging sewage all the time, but they have a resource consent to pump sewage into the sea when it rains or if there’s a blockage. It’s been going on for years.”
The man says he has seen toilet paper, tampons and discoloured water flowing from the Elizabeth Street overflow pipe into the stream behind the row of shops there.
Watercare chief infrastructure officer Steve Webster confirms there is an engineered overflow point on Elizabeth Street, which is designed to direct overflows into the Mahurangi River when the wastewater network is inundated with rainwater. He says such points exist to try to prevent overflows on private properties, which pose a greater health risk.
“Overflows can also occur in dry weather, when things like wet wipes and fats and oils build up in our pipes and cause blockages. This is why we’re always encouraging our customers to only flush the 3Ps – pee, poo and toilet paper – and to avoid pouring cooking fats and oils down the kitchen sink,” he says.
Webster acknowledged that test results indicated the presence of norovirus in the raw wastewater in June, but said further tests confirmed that wastewater treatment processes were sufficient that effluent from the treatment plant itself was not a contributing factor.
“We have a wastewater network rehabilitation project underway in Warkworth that will reduce stormwater and groundwater infiltration,” he added. (MM, Sept 11)
Webster said Watercare was also fast-tracking an interim-term solution for the Elizabeth Street pipe to reduce wet weather overflows until the delayed Warkworth growth servicing pipeline could be completed.
He added steps were also being taken to minimise the impact of dry weather overflows, which can be caused by power outages, such as the installation of a generator at the Cornel pumping station in Snells Beach.
