Wastewater discharge - Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant
An ongoing issue at the Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant has again resulted in a discharge of partially treated wastewater into the Ruamahanga River. This occurred on Monday 27 January between 9.20am and 11.30am.
Wellington Water is sorry that this has happened again and for the delay in reporting the issue to the Council. Action is now under way to get in front of this issue and to improve protocols in communicating to both Council and customers.
Although discharging treated wastewater to the river is a consented activity under the right conditions, when the river is low these types of discharges are invariably a breach of resource consent.
The Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant will have a review in order for potential points of operational failure to be identified ahead of time; this work has been prioritised for the next few days.
This discharge event and the previous one involved issues with the irrigator, which meant that discharge to adjacent land didn’t happen. With the storage ponds being full and no discharge to land possible, the designed contingency is discharge to the river, which we know is unacceptable.
Authorities at Regional Public Health and Greater Wellington Regional Council as well as iwi and community liaison group representatives have been notified.
The first incident occurred between 9.45pm on Tuesday 14 January and 10am Wednesday 15 January 2020, this resulted in 90,000 litres of partially treated wastewater discharged to the Ruamahanga River.
This latest incident resulted in 100,000 litres of partially treated wastewater discharged to the river, as well as 300,000 litres of fully treated wastewater.
Due to the dilution factor in the river, it’s understood that public health and recreational water user risk from all discharges was negligible.
However, Wellington Water is committed to doing better with how wastewater discharges enter the environment and are working on options for this. A full incident response and investigation of the outcomes of this work will be released when completed.
Scam Alert: Fake information regarding December Bonuses from MSD
The Ministry of Social Development is reporting that fake information is circulating about new ‘December bonuses’ or ‘benefit increases’
If you get suspicious communication, please contact Netsafe.
ROAD CLOSURES LOWER HUTT
Reminder: From tonight, your journeys around Te Awa Kairangi ki Tai – Lower Hutt will change. We’re closing several roads to allow us full access to the areas where we’ll be building the new SH2 interchange at Melling and bridge over Te Awa Kairangi - Hutt River.
🚧 Queens Drive will close between Rutherford Street and High Street
🚧 Pharazyn Street will close from near Marsden Street to Block Road until approximately 2029
🚧 Block Road, the old Melling station car park, Melling Park and Ride and the northern section of the Riverbank car park will be permanently closed.
We’ll also have overnight closures in place for approximately six nights on the section of Rutherford Street between Melling Link and Queens Drive, as well as some overnight lane closures around the Melling intersection on SH2.
Please plan ahead and allow extra time for your journeys as you move around the city.
Closing these areas will give us space to move and build the new train station, shift utilities, make improvements to surrounding roads and improve the ground to support the new bridge and interchange.
For more information, visit our website: teawakairangi.co.nz...
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi - Wellington, Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington, Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust, Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira
SH1 PAEKĀKĀRIKI TO LINDEN – ROADWORKS
Copied from the NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi - Wellington page on Facebook:
Plan ahead for overnight CLOSURES on Transmission Gully, 9pm-4:30am each night:
• Linden to Pāuatahanui, northbound – Tuesday 6 to Thursday 8 January and Sunday 11 January
• Paekākāriki to Pāuatahanui, southbound - Tuesday 6 to Wednesday 7 January
• Pāuatahanui to Linden, southbound – Thursday 8 to Friday 9 January and Sunday 11 January
There will be lane closures and temporary speed limits in the northbound and southbound directions at multiple sites when the road is open. Road users should consider using State Highway 59 as an alternative route.
Find our media release here: nzta.govt.nz......
All roadworks are weather dependent and could be rescheduled at short notice.
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