Source: Radio New Zealand
Wastewater poured into the Mahurangi River in October. Supplied
Watercare has announced its final tranche of compensation payment for oyster farmers North of Auckland, after an estimated 1200 cubic metres of sewage flowed into the Mahurangi River last October.
Watercare said a power surge at its Lucy Moore Memorial Park pump station tripped the pumps, and was compounded by an alarm and monitoring system that wasn’t operating as it should be – leading to delays in the response.
Wastewater poured into the Mahurangi River between the afternoon of 29 October, and the next morning.
One Mahurangi oyster farmer told RNZ that much of their 80,000 dozen oysters had to be dumped.
Watercare’s final payment brings the total payout to $2.75 million for the nine oyster farms.
Previously, a payment of $1 million was made in the immediate weeks following the spill and another $1 million at the end of last year.
Watercare chief operations officer Mark Bourne said the payment decision followed independent assessments of the financial impact resulting from the October event.
“We sincerely apologise to the oyster farmers affected by this incident and recognise the impact it had on their livelihoods and on the wider Mahurangi Harbour aquaculture industry,
“We commissioned an independent loss assessment to understand the financial impact of the October event on oyster farmers, resulting in the farms being shut down by MPI during a critical part of their harvesting season. This process has informed Watercare’s approach to resolving the claims.”
Watercare said independent reviews into the cause of the overflow has now been completed.
It said the reviews found that the incident resulted from “a unique chain of events involving technical and operational factors” at the newly commissioned station at Lucy Moore Memorial Park.
“We have taken the findings of the reviews seriously and have already implemented improvements to strengthen our systems and processes,” said Bourne.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
