Published 19/08/2024
Wellington Water working at pace to resolve Days Bay wastewater overflow
Wellington Water is making good progress in its response to the wastewater overflow at Days Bay. Failure in a wastewater pipe next to the Days Bay pump station is causing the discharge of fully treated wastewater into Waiwhetū Stream, and an overflow of untreated wastewater to Days Bay. To minimise the discharge of untreated wastewater to the environment, sucker trucks are operating 24/7 at Days Bay to transport wastewater to the Seaview treatment plant for processing.
Iwi have placed a rāhui covering Waiwhetū Stream, the eastern portion of Te Whanganui a Tara to Parangarehu (Pencarrow Point) and Te Awa Kairangi (to Waione Street Bridge) for as long as the discharge continues.
Our crews are now proceeding at pace to fully reinstate the network. This is being undertaken in parallel as follows:
- Fix valve connecting outfall to the Days Bay pump station. This will enable the main outfall to be refilled and returned to operation, stopping the discharge of treated wastewater to Waiwhetū Stream.
- Repair pipe and valves from the Days Bay pump station to fully reinstate the network and return to normal service.
At this stage, we are expecting these works to take at least a week to be fully completed, noting this is subject to weather, site conditions and any other unforeseen circumstances given the complexity of the repair and challenges of the site.
While our latest sampling results are showing that water quality has improved from all the monitored sites, the heavy rain over the weekend means restrictions remain in place for the area next to the Days Bay pump station.
We thank the Eastbourne community for their continued patience and understanding. We are doing all we can to get the pipe fixed and return the network to full operation.
For all updates on progress of this work, please see our Facebook page.
See earlier media releases
Editor notes
Wellington Water is owned and fully funded by Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council, and Upper Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and South Wairarapa District Council. All six councils are equal shareholders.
Our councils own the water infrastructure in the region, and they task us to manage the infrastructure and deliver water services to our communities.
Wellington Water is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board and our organisation receive overall leadership and direction from the Wellington Water Committee, which are also responsible for appointing members to the Board.
The Wellington Water Committee is made up of representatives from our council owners and mana whenua.
