My Account
Residents and visitors who swim in the Omaha River at Point Wells are being warned to avoid the water at low tide or after heavy rain this summer in case of raised levels of E. coli bacteria.
Samples taken at the southern end of Riverside Drive and further upstream in October, revealed concentrations almost five times the recommended levels for swimming in.
Point Wells Community Group president Laurence Eyres said an old or poorly maintained septic system was probably to blame for the abnormally high readings, which highlighted an urgent need for residents to hook up to the Jones Road mains sewerage system.
He said the community group had been urging Auckland Council to clamp down on old septic systems for some time, as well as working with landowners further upstream to stop cows defecating in the river. However, he believed the river remained swimmable, with some precautions.
“Those results were not pleasant, but to put it in context, I was taking a sample at a fairly low tide and it had rained 24 hours previously,” he said. “I would say you can swim there now, but not until three days after it’s rained, as that just washes everything down, and you should swim an hour either side of high tide, so there’s plenty of sea water coming in.”
He added that he would swim there and it was “perfectly safe” around the boat ramp.
Council’s Healthy Waters head of strategy, Andrew Chin, said Council had recently stepped up its monitoring of on-site wastewater systems in Point Wells, requesting maintenance records and providing information to home owners about keeping their systems working properly.
“Point Wells has had a sewerage system for a decade, but there are still some properties that have on-site wastewater systems like traditional septic tanks,” he said. “If these properties redevelop, they will be required to connect to Watercare’s sewerage system. If they are not redeveloping, they must regularly maintain their system and keep records for Council inspection.”
Council is also taking water samples from the boat ramp every two weeks, although it is not testing for E. coli, but enterococci, as the water there is saline. Safeswim manager Nick Vigar said it would take at least three years of data before they could build an accurate model to predict water quality on the Safeswim website.
“In the meantime there is no means to provide any certainty around water quality. However, the results we have to date from this monitoring site show no evidence of wastewater contamination,” he said.
Mr Eyres said he had suggested Council also took water samples further upstream, and will continue testing the water himself in the meantime. He added that it was encouraging that Council seemed to be taking the matter seriously.
“We’re pleased they’re doing something and starting to enforce looking after your septic tank and training people to look after them,” he said. “The long-term objective to get everyone on the Jones Road system is good. They’re trying in their slow, bureaucratic way to improve the situation.”
First-hand sufferer calls for action
One Point Wells resident who knows first-hand how debilitating E. coli can be is Gareth Eyres, who suffered years of serious illness and almost died after swimming in a river polluted by human pathogens five years ago.
The freelance writer and broadcaster fell ill after swimming in the Whanganui River. The local council later found that there had been a discharge from a wastewater pipe the day that he’d been there.
“The infection nearly killed me twice through septicaemia and turned me from a fit, active person into an invalid,” he says. “Five years of my life were just gone.”
He says Council needs to act now to make sure everyone in Point Wells is on mains sewerage to prevent anything similar happening here.
“We’re not just talking about a tummy bug, these can be life-threatening diseases,” he says. “If that happened to some kid and his parents thought he was just running a fever and they didn’t know what was going on … that’s what I don’t want happening.”
He says there are parallels with the recent White Island eruption – people ignoring a small, but real risk of something terrible happening, in the hope that everything will be all right.
“Council knows there are problems. If they don’t do anything and someone gets really sick, or worse, there’s a level of culpability there.
“There are too many meetings and too many bleatings, but nothing gets done.”
