$21m cleanup won't keep sewage out of Hutt stream

Untreated sewage will keep flowing into Lower Hutt's polluted Waiwhetu Stream during storms, despite a $21 million project.

The Greater Wellington regional council hearing committee yesterday announced that it had renewed consents, allowing Hutt City Council to discharge wastewater overflows into the stream for 15 years.

The move is culturally offensive to Maori because it will continue to foul what was once an important food source, local iwi say.

Committee chairwoman Sally Baber said the committee believed discharges of untreated sewage to waterways during wet weather were "far from ideal". However, network improvements, including a storage tank, would cut the amount of stormwater entering the sewer network. That would reduce the frequency of discharges to the Waiwhetu Stream.

The discharges would occur only in heavy wet weather, with the stream at high flow – an average of about six times a year.

Local iwi, Te Atiawa had asked for no discharges into the stream.

The rate of discharge from the overflow was expected to be 25 to 30 litres per second.

Iwi representative Teri Puketapu said: "People have no regard for the environment. They continue to dump this material in the stream."

Mr Puketapu has lived beside the Waiwhetu Stream for 70 years.

Decades of discharges containing lead, copper, arsenic, zinc and mercury from nearby factories have polluted the stream. A $21 million project is aimed at cleaning it up.

However the stream would never be the same, Mr Puketapu said.

"It's an open drain."

He had proposed sending the wastewater down the Hutt River during storms.

The larger river would flush better, he said.

"It's far from ideal, but there's much more water going down there."

Lower Hutt Mayor David Ogdenhoped the new consent was an interim measure before discharges stopped.

"Most of the issues are to do with private properties, and we have been working with them to fix their systems. It's not a chronic problem."

Meanwhile, in Wellington, Owhiro Bay on the south coast has been closed for a month.

Wellington City Council shut it down after contamination levels were breached for the third time in a month.

Council staff were still trying to find the source of the pollution.

- © Fairfax NZ News