Latest news with #Watercare
RNZ News
27-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Warkworth oyster farmers call for urgent solution to sewage overflowing into Mahurangi River
Oyster farmers in the Warkworth area, north of Auckland, fear their businesses won't survive the year. Photo: Supplied Oyster farmers north of Auckland say they need financial support and rates relief while harvesting is on hold due to pollution, or some businesses will close. Farmers in the Warkworth area are concerned Watercare still does not have an urgent solution to stop swimming-pool amounts of sewage being dumped into the water their livelihoods depend on. About 50 people from the oyster farming community met with Watercare on Monday, asking for an urgent solution to the discharges and financial relief in a meeting also attended by local MPs and councillor Greg Sayers. More rain on Monday led to another sewage overflow and Matakana Oysters owner Tom Walters said further delays would be crippling - each spill results in a 28-day ban on harvesting. "I'm really pissed off about it today. Today we're facing it again and we won't survive, simple as that," he said. Watercare said a new pump station will be working from September at the earliest, stopping wet-weather sewage overflows into the Mahurangi River, which flows to the harbour. "It's too late for me, it's too late for most of these guys. Our season generally goes from April till the end of December, three months will be left of the season then," Walters said. Maurangi Oysters owner and operator Jim Aitken said they could not wait until September for sewage discharges to end. "That gives us less than three months to sell a year's worth of oysters, which is just not physically possible. There's no way, even with the great support of the community we couldn't possibly sell enough oysters to cover this year's bills, so it's not a great sign." He said his and other farmers faced laying off staff. "With no income, there's no way we can pay salaries. We would normally have four or five people, including myself this time of year, employed. We're down to one young guy and I don't want to let him go, but I'm not sure what we can do," Aitken said. "I know a few others are struggling too. How do we even pay our bills? How do we even pay our rates that are supposed to prevent these things from happening? It's a struggle." He said many of the oyster farmers, from 10 companies, were suffering from stress. "It's a question that's been keeping me up at night, for sure, how long we can survive and I can I don't have an answer yet." Watercare's incoming chief executive Jamie Sinclair and board chair Geoff Hunt, and other senior leaders, met with the oyster farmers on Monday. A spokesperson for the agency said the meeting was held "to listen to their concerns and talk through in detail the plans we have in place to significantly reduce overflows to the Mahurangi River that occur in wet weather". "It was a constructive session and we will be providing regular updates as our programme progresses," they said. Aitken said farmers have asked for an urgent solution, rates relief and financial support. "We put our hearts on our sleeves and there were a few tears in a lot of people's eyes trying to trying to make sure the people at Watercare felt and cared about how we are struggling," he said. "The oysters are actually doing their job as filter feeders, so they are cleaning up Watercare's mess but we can't do this for free and we cannot afford to get anyone sick." The farmers had paid rates and for consents to run their businesses that they could now not operate. "We've paid a lot of money in the last couple of years on our consents and fees to do this, to do this job and of course those consents are no longer valid if we can't use them... to be able to grow oysters. "We're hoping for some sort of relief, some sort of support, so we don't have to let go of people." The pressure on Mahurangi's wastewater network is a long-running issue and Auckland Council recently warned developers that no wastewater connections could be made to properties south of the river until upgrades are completed later this year. Watercare said its pipes in Elizabeth St, Warkworth, are nearing capacity and when it rains stormwater can enter the wastewater network and cause it to overflow into the river the street borders. It also said some household downpipes were incorrectly connected to the gully trap, instead of the wastewater network. The agency said it would reduce sewage overflows by installing a larger pipe at Elizabeth St, starting in August and this would be complete by the end of the year. Longer term, Watercare said it is designing a large pipeline that will carry wastewater from new developments north of the river in Warkworth, through the township to the new pump station at Lucy Moore Memorial Reserve, which would increase the network's capacity and be complete in 2028. "This new pipeline is part of an investment of more than $450m to completely transform wastewater services for Warkworth and Snells Beach communities," a spokesperson said. "The programme includes building a new pump station, a new treatment plant at Snells Beach, a transfer pipeline to connect them, and an ocean outfall." "The ocean outfall, transfer pipeline and pump station are already completed. The new treatment plant is on track to be finished and in service later this year, ending the discharge of treated wastewater to the Mahurangi River."
RNZ News
27-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Midday Report Essentials for Tuesday 27 May 2025
Pacific conservation 36 minutes ago In today's episode, the Police Commissioner has slammed a shoplifting directive issued to police, labelling it as "confusing and unhelpful", RNZ revealed last week a memo was sent to police about not investigating retail crime below certain thresholds - this meant officers could apply nationally standardised value thresholds when assessing theft and fraud files, Samoa's Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mata'afa has announced she will seek a dissolution of parliament and an early election, and an Oyster farmer in Warkworth says he's not hopeful sewage overflows affecting his livelihood will stop, after a meeting with Watercare on Monday.
RNZ News
27-05-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Oyster farmer 'not hopeful' sewage overflows in Mahurangi Harbour will stop
farming infrastructure 23 minutes ago An Oyster farmer in Warkworth says he's not hopeful sewage overflows affecting his livelihood will stop, after a meeting with Watercare on Monday. Tom Walters runs Matakana Oysters and he spoke to Charlotte Cook.
RNZ News
20-05-2025
- Health
- RNZ News
Do you need a water filter?
Watercare production manager Tom Wallace and head of water Sharon Danks. Photo: Watercare Poking through a pile of housewarming presents are two water filter jugs. The fear is real. "Tap water tastes disgusting," one gifter said. "Tap water makes your hair fall," another one claimed. The prevalence of this perception drove a household debate - do we need to filter our tap water, if it's already been through a complex process to make it safe to drink? On a sunny April morning at Watercare's Ardmore Treatment Plant nestled in the foothills of Auckland's Hunua Ranges, production manager Tom Wallace explained how rain water gets from the dams through the filters and into our pipes. "It's always like an optical illusion. The water is under gravity, so it's coming from the two big tunnels through the hillside and it comes in through the plant. And what's typically happening in the clarifiers is that the water goes in the bottom of the clarifiers. And as water rises up, the solids have been settled out through manipulation of the chemistry by dosing some chemicals upfront. "You'll see the troughs running along the top, it collects the clean water and the water flows into the next part of the process, which is the sand filters. There's 30 sand filters and 83 clarifiers. So the clarifiers clarify the water first, they clean it up a little bit, and the filters do the removal of the remaining bits of solid before it goes for disinfection." After the clarification, the water is already crystal clear. But Wallace said looking clean does not mean it's safe to drink. A photo shows the comparison between dirty and clarified water. Photo: Ke-Xin Li There are still harmful bacteria, which will be killed through either chlorine or chlorine combined with UV light. While chlorine gas used at Ardmore is effective at killing harmful bacteria, Watercare's head of water Sharon Danks said it's not to everyone's taste. "Some people are quite sensitive to the taste of chlorine, and so sometimes you can taste it, the chlorine, in the tap water. It doesn't make the water less safe." Chlorine gas is used to disinfect water at Ardmore Water Treatment Plant. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Wallace said lime is added at the final stage to make sure the water heading out to the network "isn't corrosive to the pipes". It takes four hours for water from the reservoirs to pass through the Ardmore Water Treatment plant, before it goes to household taps as clean drinking water. Wallace explained what should and should not be in the water by the time it reaches the tap. "So there is no bacteria within that water that is in any way harmful to public health. We're regulated on that by the Ministry of Health. This plant in particular is sampled every single day for coliforms, E. coli. In terms of mineral content, we typically have what we get from the raw reservoir, we change it a little bit through the process by adding some lime, but we're not adding huge amounts." Ardmore Water Treatment Plant has 30 sand filters and 83 clarifiers. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Danks said the water flows by gravity and when the water leaves the Ardmore plant, it can make it all the way to Forrest Hill on the North Shore, or more than 50kilometres, before it need to be pumped. "The forefathers of Watercare, so to speak, or the engineers that designed the system did very well for us to allow the water to move by gravity for such a long way. It's part of the reason why water is so affordable in Auckland as well." The chlorine level decreased as water travelled through the network, which is why some people may taste stronger chlorine than others, said Danks. On average, 1.2 milligrams of chlorine per litre is added at the Ardmore plant, which results in levels from 0.6 to 0.8 mg/l by the time it reaches Forrest Hill. Chemical dosing at Watercare is done through a control room with computer screens, instead of labs. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Every year the Water Industry Operations Group holds the National Water Taste Test competition. Last year, Rotorua was crowned for the best tasting tap water. Professor Naresh Singhal is the director of the Water Research Centre at the University of Auckland. He said most water filters on the market are like little water-treatment plants. Activated carbon can filter out organic containments, but does not kill bacteria. "Some may also remove chlorine a little bit, but again, I'm not 100 percent sure if they do that effectively. They can remove heavy metals. So if there's a concern that you have PFAs, heavy metals such as lead, then they could be useful in that sense. But generally in New Zealand, my understanding would be that you should not have these issues with drinking water." Singhal said using a water filter at home is more about personal taste than necessity. "People are used to a certain taste. And if the taste changes compared to what they've been used here, it may come across as being unpleasant. It may also come across as being unsafe, and then they will obviously be tempted to take some action." But for those who like their water filtered at home, Singhal suggests actively maintaining and replacing the filters on time, otherwise you might be contaminating what comes through the tap. Back at the Ardmore Treatment Plant, Wallace gives me a glass of freshly treated water from the kitchen. I asked him if they have an in-sink water filter, and the answer is positive, especially for guests who are not used to the stronger chlorine. 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RNZ News
16-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Demand increasing for land unaffected by Auckland's water infrastructure constraints
Dave Barr outside a retirement village development in Kumeū completed before Watercare constraints. Photo: RNZ / Luka Forman Demand is increasing for land unaffected by Auckland's water infrastructure constraints, which an economist says could push up prices in the city's central suburbs. Last year, Watercare [ released a map] revealing many areas of Auckland with water or wastewater restrictions which meant new builds in those areas might not be able to connect to the water network until necessary upgrades were complete. It meant some property developers were avoiding large chunks of Auckland affected by the constraints, putting more pressure on the property market in the city's central suburbs. Hopper Development had three projects in the Hibiscus Coast which were all affected by Watercare's constraints. The future of two of them was now uncertain, and one - a care home for the elderly, was scrapped completely because of the restrictions. Development manager Dave Barr said they would now pay a premium for any new properties which they were confident would have the necessary infrastructure. "Our business is changing, we're actively seeking properties with good infrastructure connectivity, because it means less risk for us, we can control outcomes better." That meant they would not be starting any projects in the Hibiscus Coast, Warkworth, North Shore, Beach Haven and Birkdale, Waitakere, Ōtara-Papatoetoe, East Auckland, and Beachlands-Maraetai. All of those areas had some kind of water or wastewater constraint according Watercare's map. "It knocks out a bunch for us and other developers, effectively deeming them no-go zones for developers." Watercare's map outlining capacity issues in wastewater network. Photo: Supplied / Watercare Rasvinder Singh, director of property development company Reliance Homes, recently bought a property at auction in Mt Roskill without Watercare restrictions, beating 12 other bidders. Knowing the property had no potential issues with water infrastructure made it more appealing, he said. "We did browse more of the properties over Auckland. We did shortlist. A lot of areas might be promising on paper, but if there's limited wastewater capacity you are stuck. Even if zoning allows development." Property economist at Cotality, Kelvin Davidson said this change in the areas developers bought in would likely push up property prices in areas that could connect to the wastewater network. "If you see increased demand for the same amount of land, you're probably going to see some increase in value. So I think that's a fairly standard expectation." Dave Barr from Hopper Development said the restrictions would have huge knock-on effects for the region. "It's the trades, it's the other service providers like Chorus... it's home affordability for young families, that whole pipeline stops effectively." Property consultant and ex Auckland councillor Michael Goudie represented a group of industry professionals called Housing Without Hurdles. He has been advocating to Watercare on behalf of some the affected developers, but said progress was slow. "We have put our case forward. We've had a face-to-face meeting, a couple of letters have been exchanged but that's sort of where it's fallen short. We find it incredibly frustrating just trying to get timely responses." With these constraints, and other council compliance costs, some developers were giving up on the industry - which Goudie said would tank housing supply in the long run. "It gets to a point where it's not about extra costs on each one of those lots. It's actually just about developers packing up their toys and leaving." In a statement, a Watercare spokesperson said it was working hard to navigate several complex challenges and was focused on the health of the environment and current and future communities. They said Watercare was focused on supporting growth in line with Auckland council's vision. Watercare would continue to engage with developers all over the city, answer questions as they came up, and support them through their developments, the spokesperson said. There were numeous examples where developments were moving forward, they said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
