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Watercare will start building a $26 million wastewater pump station at Warkworth’s Lucy Moore Memorial Reserve as soon as lockdown restrictions ease.
Watercare says the pump station is the first of a series of projects that will cater for growth and improve water quality in the Mahurangi River.
The pump station will be followed by the installation of a transfer pipeline, which will take wastewater from the pump station to a new wastewater treatment plant in Snells Beach/Algies Bay, which is due to be complete by mid-2022.
Watercare project manager Dirk du Plessis says the projects will help prevent overflows and discharges into the Mahurangi River, ensuring cleaner water for everyone.
“The new infrastructure marks an exciting new chapter in Warkworth’s history,” he says.
The transfer pipeline will require the boring of a tunnel between 30 and 40 metres underground.The planned pump station is more than double the size of the 50-year-old existing facility and will be build on the existing pump station site. The new pumps will be capable of sending wastewater to the Snells treatment plant for processing at 290 litres per second, making them four times more powerful than the existing pumps.
Pedestrian access to the reserve will remain while construction takes place.
Once the wastewater has been treated, it will be discharged into the Hauraki Gulf via an outfall pipe, which was completed in March. The current Warkworth wastewater treatment plant will be decommissioned once the Snells/Algies Bay replacement is up and running.
The Warkworth wastewater upgrades are due to be completed in 2024. Around 20,000 new residents are expected to move into the Warkworth area in the coming decades.
