Sewage spills again

SHELLFISH WARNING: A ban on swimming and fishing in the upper harbour has now been lifted but people have been told to not gather shellfish from the Kissing Point to Stevens Point area until mid-October.

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The upper Whangarei Harbour is once again closed for shellfish gathering after the fourth raw sewage overflow in two months.

But preventing ‘poo’ pollution is now a key priority for all Northland councils, with the creation of the Northland Sewage Accord.

Achieving acceptable water quality by improving sewage management is the accord’s aim.

In the latest sewage spill, a sewage pump station at the corner of Pah and Beach Rds in Onerahi got blocked sometime on Friday, September 12.

An unidentified fault with the pump’s telemetry alarm meant the blockage was not found until Monday, with sewage overflowing into the harbour all weekend.

Gary Oldcorn, the Whangarei District Council’s waste and drainage manager, says while original estimates showed up to 40,000 litres had split, more accurate estimates were about 2000 litres.

Mr Oldcorn says there will be blockages in the pumps if people flush nappies and sanitary pads down the toilet.

A similar incident occurred in Tawera Rd on August 12, when a blockage caused an unknown quantity of raw sewage to spill onto the ground and into the Raumanga stream.

The pipes were fixed immediately and the site was cleaned.

What was unusual about the spill in Onerahi is the alarm not paging the contractors, says Mr Oldcorn.

An audible alarm has now also been installed at the pump to let locals know if there is a problem. But the blockage is dwarfed by wet weather spills, with 20 million litres spilling at six places on July 27 and 28.

On August 18, stormwater overflowed from the Kioreroa Rd wastewater treatment plant, also due to wet weather.

Mr Oldcorn says the district council is applying for a resource consent at the moment to discharge sewage at Okara Park pump station twice a year during storms. It would cost about $20m to reduce the discharges to once every five years and $25m to once every 10 years, by replacing pipes and building storage, he says.

"As a community we have to decide how we might spend money to cope with the highest of flows to the highest of standards," says Mr Oldcorn.

Riaan Elliot, Northland Regional Council’s monitoring manager, says district council’s resource consents will be publicly notified soon.

In the meantime, the regional council has asked for more information about what happened during the Onerahi overflow.

Last year the district council was prosecuted by regional council for a raw sewage spill, requiring it to spend $10,000 on environmental projects in the harbour.

Mr Elliot believes the sewage accord will help with sewage problems, with all the parties getting on board and making a commitment.

"Historically we felt like we were hitting our heads against a brick wall," he says.

- © Fairfax NZ News