Source: Radio New Zealand
The Mangati Pump Station. Supplied
Work is set to begin on an upgrade to a New Plymouth sewage pump station, which has a history of overflowing into the Mangati Stream during power cuts or wet weather events.
To reduce the likelihood of future overflows, it was planned to install a large underground emergency storage unit beneath the adjacent Mangati Walkway in Bell Block.
In 2021, water services company, Citycare, and the New Plymouth District Council were fined $112,000 and $66,500 respectively for their part in spilling 1.5 million cubic litres of human effluent into the stream in – the equivalent of half the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The January 2019 sewage pump station failure, which lasted for more than nine hours, also killed hundred of fish and eels.
NPDC Project Delivery Manager Sean Cressy said the first stage of the upgrade would be ground-testing to find out how much water was in the soil which would involve installing monitoring equipment in bore holes.
“The information we gather will help us design emergency storage that is suitable for the environment.”
Drilling the bore holes was scheduled to start on 19 January.
Cressy said silt control bags and fences would capture any sediment to prevent it entering Mangati Stream and pedestrians would be able to walk past the worksite with care during the three-week work.
Stage two of the upgrade, the installation of underground storage, would take place in 2026/27.
This project was part of NPDC’s $289 million investment over 10 years to fix the district’s plumbing.
At a glance:
- The council maintained 34 pump stations, more than 7000 manholes and nearly 700km of pipes in the district’s wastewater network.
- Raw sewage and trade waste collected from Waitara, Bell Block, New Plymouth, Inglewood and Ōākura was treated at the New Plymouth Wastewater Treatment Plant, which was turned into clean effluent, which was discharged via an outfall into the Tasman Sea, and the slow-release fertiliser Bioboost.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
