00:00:05
Speaker 1: Kiota.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Wellington's More Point wastewater plant has flooded and shut down, dumping raw sewage into the south coast. This untreated discharge is set to continue for weeks. Heavy rain overwhelmed the facility built in the nineties, triggering Beach Rahui's health warnings and exposing how climate driven storms are already stressing coastal infrastructure. Billions of dollars is likely required to get our wastewater infrastructure in this country up to scratch, But after a long history of underfunding, are we too late?
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Today?
00:00:54
Speaker 2: On the front page, University of Canterbury Associate Professor Ricardo Bellowmandoz is with us to unpack the engineering lessons from more Point, the climate risks and what it means for our future. But first on the front page, Enzid Harold's senior reporter Melissa Nightingale is with us to set the scene. First off, Melissa tell us what happens? Take us back.
00:01:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the first that we heard about it in the newsroom, there was some social media posts put out by the council saying that sewage was flowing into the ocean. Unfortunately, that's not one hundred percent uncommon for Wellington, but normally it's something like partially treated sewage and heavy rain. But Council, we're referring to this as a major incident, so we thought, oh, that's a bit strange. It turns out that what had happened was there had been some type of mechanical failure at the mower Point sewage treatment plant and that had caused the raw, untreated sewage to flow back into the plant, filling it up about eighty percent of the way. And then all of this had overloaded the system and it was flowing out of this short pipe about five meters into the sea. So just on the beaches there pumping I think seventy million cubic meters of raw sewage into Wellington's south coast ocean.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: Wow, and is it still going?
00:02:28
Speaker 3: It took them a few days, but they've managed to get it switched out to the long outfall pipe, which goes about one point eight kilometers out to sea. It's only partially treated though, so we've still got pretty hazardous stuff being pumped out there. So at the moment that means that using the beaches, fishing that kind of thing, even walking near the beaches is not recommended in those areas because council is warning that you may have contaminated sea spray flying up at you. Not a nice place for a stroll at the moment.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. So how long did I reckon repairs will take?
00:03:08
Speaker 3: It's looking pretty grim. They're saying that it's going to take months to repair. They haven't figured out yet even what caused it, so I think initially they were thinking there might be some type of blockage in the pipe, and the Wellington Water Chief Executive Pat Doperty, he was saying that they had put cameras down the first few hundred meters of the pipe and they didn't find anything. So their next step is getting some hydraulic engineers in and they're going to be doing like sonah testing on this pipe to try and figure out what's happened, whether there's like a problem with like an air blockage in there or something wrong with the diffusers. So that's definitely the big thing for them. Well, first of all, it's fixing the issue and getting this sewage treated and the plant back up and running and then it's yea figuring out how did this happen? Why did this happen? Who knew that there were problems? Did anyone know?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Yeah?
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Speaker 2: So Wellington Mayor Andrew Little he's met with Prime Minister Christopher Luxen and your Energy minister there, Simon Watts last night.
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Speaker 1: What came of that.
00:04:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's asked for them to LA launch it an independent government inquiry into this. He says that the government will sponsor that and it's just going to help have a really a proper independent overview of the investigation. What he said, what Andrew Little said was that you've got too many people possibly talking over each other. You've got the council that owns the site, Wellington Water that runs the regions who contracts the region's water, Violia that runs this particular site, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council which has regulatory oversight. And it would just be helpful, according to Andrew Little, to have someone not connected to any of those groups who can look at this and say who knew what when and were there any red flags that were raised with their design?
00:04:59
Speaker 1: Flow?
00:05:00
Speaker 3: Is what we're the olier doing and what were they telling to their superios? That kind of thing.
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Speaker 2: Now, how big of a deal is it not to be able to use those beaches or even as you say, walk along those beaches I mean in Auckland, say, if you know there's a bit of rain, there's some sewerage into the you know, unfortunately not uncommon here as well. People here don't kind of go, oh, let's go to Auckland Harbor and have a swim this weekend, you know what I mean? So could you paint us a picture of how serious a deal this is not being able to use those places?
00:05:34
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I mean this We're still in the heat of summer right and Wellington already we don't get the best summers. So where we've lost the chance to make the most of some of our last couple of months of beautiful sunny whether on that south coast where some of our loveliest beaches are. I mean, those are the beaches that you go to for surfing and things like that. There's some really lovely spots. Thankfully there are still each is around the Wellington area. I took my family out to Day's Bay last weekend, which is out around the Eastbourne area. You know, that was fine, The water was clear, it was considered safe on the lawa website to go to. But you know, there's a there's a lot of people that are going to be very put out that they can't they can't swim, that it's not even safe to walk around these lovely South Ghost beaches, and you know they're smelling. You know, it doesn't smell good, it doesn't look good. So it's it really sucks for Wellington to have this hit at this particular time of year as well.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: Well, let's hope it I'll get sorted relatively quickly. Thanks so much for joining us, Melissa.
00:06:43
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: It'll come as no surprise when I say to you it's going to cost billions and billions of dollars to fix our country's failing water infrastruction. University of Canfree Associate Professor Riccardo Bello Mendoza is with us now to take us through what we could do short term and how we might be able to tackle this problem once and for roll. Riccardo, what do initial reports here at more point tell us about what perhaps went wrong with the plant's equipment during last week's heavy rain.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like the origin of the problem was there was heavy rains in recent days and that increases the flows, the volumes of wastewater coming into the treatment plant, and most plants are not able to deal with these peaks in westwater flows, so in most cases they will have to wipe us at least a portion of the westwater will have to go straight into the outfu and then into the ocean without any treatment. So in this case, while it is not diabet because there is dilusion due to the rainwater, there still needs to be some screening, some preliminary to remove the biggest stuff in the water and sand and so on, but organics and solids will still be in the water and that will be discharged. So that is something that happens. I wouldn't say it regularly, but from time to time in most with water plants in New Zealand, because simply they are not designed to treat rainwater. But in this case, in more point, when they decided to do this by passing, it looks like there was a blockage in the outfall pipe and then the water just packed up. So basically huge volumes of water will just coming back into the dreaming plant and that flooded the plant and the equipment and we were talking about with what even though it was diluted with wine, water still is a is a hazard, so they need to be careful with that, and they need to then look at the damage that has caused the equipment. So it will take, unfortunately sometime until everything is fixed. Now, there was some concerns about what was actually causing that blockage, so they were even thinking that it would take weeks to discover where the blockage was and to fix it. But unfortunately it was fixed relatively quickly. That at least is now solved because now the water is flowing normally into the ocean. But getting the plant again online will take several weeks. Most of the equipment that we used have to be imported, so it might take a month to actually get a plant still, I mean up and running again.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: We said relatively.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: I mean it does happen from time to time, right when there's heavy rain. These things happen, and not only in Wellington, big surprise, Shoka, but all around the country. Yes, Is that good enough?
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a problem hearing crushes. For example, we did a study a couple of years ago looking at the flows of water and nutrients in the city and we found wasn't really really that new, but we found that there is a significant portion of groundwater rainwater getting into the sewer and that means that the wastewater turning plant is not only receiving this sewage that should be treating, but it's also a big portion of that is just groundwater rain water. So there is an aging sewer infrastructure in the country in many places, not only in Wellington, and we need to start fixing that so we don't actually get those peaks in what now in most treatment plans, they don't design to cope with those peaks because it will be overdesigning. It will be a huge investment that is in most cases so necessary. So what they need to do is just to control how much and when that a peak of a sewage and rainwater is being dumped into the environment.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: Presumably when they were first designed in what the eighties and nineties, depending on where you were in the country they were designed. You know what the packet say is for waste water only.
00:11:14
Speaker 1: They were still designed for some portion of influence. We call it influence or infiltration to happen. And when we have a new sewer system, the infiltration and influence is minimum. But then as we have an aging infrastructure sewers, then we have to have some cracks in the system also mindholes that where the water can get into, so eventually that can increase. But again you're right, so say twenty thirty years ago the population wasn't of the size that it is now, so it's growing in some cases faster than expected. And also we have these weather extreme weather events that were not happening just ten twenty years ago, and we have now systems that are more superceptible to be damaged by these events. So it's also important to think of resilience. In most cases, in New Zealand, we have centralized with water timon plants. Basically we put all the eggs in a basket. If that goes wrong, then we don't have any alternative. So in some cases it may be a waste to consider decentralized systems. But again this is a huge investment we're talking about, so it's a big decision and it has to be done well considering risk and average assessment and res mitigation process.
00:12:41
Speaker 2: Well infrastructure New Zealand estimates they reckon about one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty five billion dollars is needed for water upgrades over the next thirty years. That's driven by a climate resilience. Wastewater facilities around the country have always been underfunded, right, been on the founder for years, sometimes decades. Are we just going to always be playing catch up if we don't write that two hundred billion dollar check, say.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: That's the risk when these kind of events happened, we are just well, in this case a more point a huge amount of money we have to invest it just to fix the plant again, just to get it back to how it was instead of actually upgrading or improving these systems. So it's always catching up. And also with more common heavy range events, this again it's it's like a risk that we might being behind. Yeah, so it's but I mean somethings are happening in a positive way. So now we have a national with what standard that came into a place just a few months ago at the end of twenty twenty five, and that will guide how we make decisions at the national level. Well, because in the past everything was handled at a local level, but consoles and that means that sometimes we were actually not learning from the experience somewhere else. We were just making local decisions and now we will be moving forward in a more articulated way.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and way more collaboration across the board. Hey, so something like I know that this is not wastewater, but something like havelocked North for instance. There, I suppose there'd be some people in that council who have very specific expertise to then pass on to everybody else. But if there wasn't you know that. I bet there's stuff like that happening all the time over the country and people just aren't collaborating.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: Yes, correct, Yeah, I think there is need to be a need for councils and operators to be collaborating more closely on this. Yeah, and it is a good example that you mentioned have looked North, because unfortunately it is only when these kind of events happen is that we start to pay attention. And big changes have actually happened in New Zealands since that. So there has been an investment in a deeper boreholes so we can get more better quality around water, also protecting the boreholes so we don't have the same situation of what happened in Headlock northware overflow stone water was actually getting into the well there is also now disinfection, so chlorination and you'll be disinfection also happening in many places. So things have been moving in the right direction. It's unfortunate that something like that had to happen to move faster. So maybe I'm hoping that with what happened with more points, other operators will then pay attention and say, Okay, we don't want to be in the same situation, we need to do something. Well.
00:15:52
Speaker 2: Plants like my point, I believe it was built in nineteen ninety eight, so they face twice normal sea rise in Wellington for example. As an engineer, what kind of retrofits or relocations make the most sense I suppose for those aging coastal facilities like that nationwide.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it has to be made on that. I mean considering the situation a case by case basis, So I don't know exactly the situation at more point. But plants that are just off the coast, they are risks of sea level rising, so I think there is a need and they probably have it. I will be surprised if they don't have done a risk assessment to see what are the threats or the plant So Bloodings Landslide sea level rising, et cetera. Also, there is also the situation that population may be growing surrounding the plants, so there's no room for expansion, so that I push operators to maybe think of relocating a new West quad retainment plant.
00:17:14
Speaker 4: We're on our drive at the moment to make sure that we have as low as possible rates increase as we can in the next financial year. When facebook situations like this, we just have to make trade offs. And there's a lot of stuff we've got in the pipeline that would be nice to do, but the reality is the council is going to have to say, look, there's some stuff that we just can't do. Run into city council that's going to have to foot the bill for getting the plant back up and running further down the track, but have to work out who might be responsible, who might be liable, where we might keep contributions from. But it will fall on will into city council in the first instance.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: Beyond investment, I suppose writing that you know those billions and billions of dollars of chegs, how should New Zealand rethink wastewater planning?
00:18:01
Speaker 1: Well, as I mentioned before, the national standards with water standards are I think in the right direction, because now there is a matter of y is the the entity that is now handling at the national level what we do with our water and with water, so that can be then a step in the right direction. Also, I think, apart from the unfortunate event of this blockage at one point, whether it was trading, also in the news listening in the news, is that there was a situation of complaints to the the charge. So I think it might be just an operation. Actually it's not. Probably not like the plant is necessarily too old. It's probably an operational problem. So we need to pay more attention to that. So we we even with the resources that we have, we use it wisely properly.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned before that a lot of the equipment that they'll need to figure out what's wrong and kind of fix the issue is coming in from overseas. Are there any places overseas that are simply just doing it better and that we should have a look at.
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Well, there are some countries also, maybe I'm thinking maybe countries with large coastal areas. Singapore has been for example, it's smaller in terms of size country than New Zealands, so this situation is different, but they have been doing very well with the resources that they have, and I think in New Zealand we have been also doing well in the past, but I think we are now lagging behind because we haven't been at the same pace as the demands. So we're infrastructuralist aging. The population is growing. There are some places I live in Royaliston near Characters and the town has been growing very fast in the last ten years. So the local water turning plant is near to reach's capacity so many years before it was initially planned. So this is against the situation where we are behind the changes. But yeah, there are some examples. I would probably think of Singapore as an example, but again it's more of a local situation that need to be considered.
00:20:22
Speaker 2: There's always a real push to build up and build out. So you mentioned Rolston obviously, and a lot of places in North Canterbury have popped up over the years. You've got Lincoln, You've got wood End, just things like that, and you know everyone wants to build more houses. Make ever, you know more people in Auckland, the populations growing. Is it an issue of we get excited about these projects and get excited about people moving places and living places, and we tend to forget about the you know, the wastewater, the boring stuff.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: I suppose, yeah, you're right. Think with water is one of these critical infrastructures that we actually probably don't don't think about it, so even though it is quite important for our daily lives, we just lost it and then forget about it out of side, out of mind. So and that usually leads to then also decision makers just putting it behind in the priority by often will be the things that are more visible, and that happens everywhere, not only in New Zealand, but also yes, you're right. So in terms of houses, I think it's a difficult situation. On the one hand, we need to increase our housing so we have a population that need houses, but also we need to I think it's important not to continue doing business as usual, so the way that we are growing is not necessarily the best way, and it's putting pressure on this kind of infrastructure. Is services like a drinking water supply, like with water, then we have roads and a number of things that we need to consider, and usually those things are those services that are just not at the forefront of the priorities.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: It's difficult, isn't it, because when people have those conversations about things being underfunded. Now you think about our hospital infrastructure, right, and that's just a real crisis area. And if you did have billions and billions of dollars to give away all of a sudden, like a genie just granted you three wishes, people would generally go straight towards will. Hospitals are underfunded. They've been underfunded for decades. You know, there's mold in some hospitals in this country, and then you've got classrooms, same situation, and wastewater is really yeah, it does kind of sit at the back of the pack.
00:22:44
Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, With so many needs and limited resources, it's difficult to make the decisions. We have many needs, like you're rightly highlighting over hospital infrastructure, it's also needs investment. And if you ask people what are the priorities that we're probably talking about that hospitals, they might be talking about the situation of the world, maybe transport and so on and so forth, and probably only a few of them will be saying, okay, we need to improve with water infrastructure because nobody sees it, so every we all assume that it's working well, that's being care of, but we sometimes don't know the real situation, and it's only when this happens and then we don't have the service so we can no longer use the toilet Los the toilets will realize, Okay, this is actually important. Yeah, So I think that that that puts this infrastructure in a difficult situation. Also decision makers might find it difficult. So I think it's important to make a national assessment of priorities and then start investing wisely in what is actually needed.
00:23:53
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Raccato.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: Thank you, and have a good day.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot enz The Front Page is hosted and produced by me Chelsea daniels Kine. Dickie is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the Front Page on the iheartapp or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.
Speaker 1: Kiota.
00:00:06
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Wellington's More Point wastewater plant has flooded and shut down, dumping raw sewage into the south coast. This untreated discharge is set to continue for weeks. Heavy rain overwhelmed the facility built in the nineties, triggering Beach Rahui's health warnings and exposing how climate driven storms are already stressing coastal infrastructure. Billions of dollars is likely required to get our wastewater infrastructure in this country up to scratch, But after a long history of underfunding, are we too late?
00:00:54
Speaker 1: Today?
00:00:54
Speaker 2: On the front page, University of Canterbury Associate Professor Ricardo Bellowmandoz is with us to unpack the engineering lessons from more Point, the climate risks and what it means for our future. But first on the front page, Enzid Harold's senior reporter Melissa Nightingale is with us to set the scene. First off, Melissa tell us what happens? Take us back.
00:01:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the first that we heard about it in the newsroom, there was some social media posts put out by the council saying that sewage was flowing into the ocean. Unfortunately, that's not one hundred percent uncommon for Wellington, but normally it's something like partially treated sewage and heavy rain. But Council, we're referring to this as a major incident, so we thought, oh, that's a bit strange. It turns out that what had happened was there had been some type of mechanical failure at the mower Point sewage treatment plant and that had caused the raw, untreated sewage to flow back into the plant, filling it up about eighty percent of the way. And then all of this had overloaded the system and it was flowing out of this short pipe about five meters into the sea. So just on the beaches there pumping I think seventy million cubic meters of raw sewage into Wellington's south coast ocean.
00:02:26
Speaker 2: Wow, and is it still going?
00:02:28
Speaker 3: It took them a few days, but they've managed to get it switched out to the long outfall pipe, which goes about one point eight kilometers out to sea. It's only partially treated though, so we've still got pretty hazardous stuff being pumped out there. So at the moment that means that using the beaches, fishing that kind of thing, even walking near the beaches is not recommended in those areas because council is warning that you may have contaminated sea spray flying up at you. Not a nice place for a stroll at the moment.
00:03:03
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. So how long did I reckon repairs will take?
00:03:08
Speaker 3: It's looking pretty grim. They're saying that it's going to take months to repair. They haven't figured out yet even what caused it, so I think initially they were thinking there might be some type of blockage in the pipe, and the Wellington Water Chief Executive Pat Doperty, he was saying that they had put cameras down the first few hundred meters of the pipe and they didn't find anything. So their next step is getting some hydraulic engineers in and they're going to be doing like sonah testing on this pipe to try and figure out what's happened, whether there's like a problem with like an air blockage in there or something wrong with the diffusers. So that's definitely the big thing for them. Well, first of all, it's fixing the issue and getting this sewage treated and the plant back up and running and then it's yea figuring out how did this happen? Why did this happen? Who knew that there were problems? Did anyone know?
00:04:02
Speaker 1: Yeah?
00:04:02
Speaker 2: So Wellington Mayor Andrew Little he's met with Prime Minister Christopher Luxen and your Energy minister there, Simon Watts last night.
00:04:11
Speaker 1: What came of that.
00:04:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's asked for them to LA launch it an independent government inquiry into this. He says that the government will sponsor that and it's just going to help have a really a proper independent overview of the investigation. What he said, what Andrew Little said was that you've got too many people possibly talking over each other. You've got the council that owns the site, Wellington Water that runs the regions who contracts the region's water, Violia that runs this particular site, and the Greater Wellington Regional Council which has regulatory oversight. And it would just be helpful, according to Andrew Little, to have someone not connected to any of those groups who can look at this and say who knew what when and were there any red flags that were raised with their design?
00:04:59
Speaker 1: Flow?
00:05:00
Speaker 3: Is what we're the olier doing and what were they telling to their superios? That kind of thing.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Now, how big of a deal is it not to be able to use those beaches or even as you say, walk along those beaches I mean in Auckland, say, if you know there's a bit of rain, there's some sewerage into the you know, unfortunately not uncommon here as well. People here don't kind of go, oh, let's go to Auckland Harbor and have a swim this weekend, you know what I mean? So could you paint us a picture of how serious a deal this is not being able to use those places?
00:05:34
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I mean this We're still in the heat of summer right and Wellington already we don't get the best summers. So where we've lost the chance to make the most of some of our last couple of months of beautiful sunny whether on that south coast where some of our loveliest beaches are. I mean, those are the beaches that you go to for surfing and things like that. There's some really lovely spots. Thankfully there are still each is around the Wellington area. I took my family out to Day's Bay last weekend, which is out around the Eastbourne area. You know, that was fine, The water was clear, it was considered safe on the lawa website to go to. But you know, there's a there's a lot of people that are going to be very put out that they can't they can't swim, that it's not even safe to walk around these lovely South Ghost beaches, and you know they're smelling. You know, it doesn't smell good, it doesn't look good. So it's it really sucks for Wellington to have this hit at this particular time of year as well.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: Well, let's hope it I'll get sorted relatively quickly. Thanks so much for joining us, Melissa.
00:06:43
Speaker 3: Thank you.
00:06:50
Speaker 2: It'll come as no surprise when I say to you it's going to cost billions and billions of dollars to fix our country's failing water infrastruction. University of Canfree Associate Professor Riccardo Bello Mendoza is with us now to take us through what we could do short term and how we might be able to tackle this problem once and for roll. Riccardo, what do initial reports here at more point tell us about what perhaps went wrong with the plant's equipment during last week's heavy rain.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like the origin of the problem was there was heavy rains in recent days and that increases the flows, the volumes of wastewater coming into the treatment plant, and most plants are not able to deal with these peaks in westwater flows, so in most cases they will have to wipe us at least a portion of the westwater will have to go straight into the outfu and then into the ocean without any treatment. So in this case, while it is not diabet because there is dilusion due to the rainwater, there still needs to be some screening, some preliminary to remove the biggest stuff in the water and sand and so on, but organics and solids will still be in the water and that will be discharged. So that is something that happens. I wouldn't say it regularly, but from time to time in most with water plants in New Zealand, because simply they are not designed to treat rainwater. But in this case, in more point, when they decided to do this by passing, it looks like there was a blockage in the outfall pipe and then the water just packed up. So basically huge volumes of water will just coming back into the dreaming plant and that flooded the plant and the equipment and we were talking about with what even though it was diluted with wine, water still is a is a hazard, so they need to be careful with that, and they need to then look at the damage that has caused the equipment. So it will take, unfortunately sometime until everything is fixed. Now, there was some concerns about what was actually causing that blockage, so they were even thinking that it would take weeks to discover where the blockage was and to fix it. But unfortunately it was fixed relatively quickly. That at least is now solved because now the water is flowing normally into the ocean. But getting the plant again online will take several weeks. Most of the equipment that we used have to be imported, so it might take a month to actually get a plant still, I mean up and running again.
00:09:34
Speaker 3: We said relatively.
00:09:35
Speaker 2: I mean it does happen from time to time, right when there's heavy rain. These things happen, and not only in Wellington, big surprise, Shoka, but all around the country. Yes, Is that good enough?
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's a problem hearing crushes. For example, we did a study a couple of years ago looking at the flows of water and nutrients in the city and we found wasn't really really that new, but we found that there is a significant portion of groundwater rainwater getting into the sewer and that means that the wastewater turning plant is not only receiving this sewage that should be treating, but it's also a big portion of that is just groundwater rain water. So there is an aging sewer infrastructure in the country in many places, not only in Wellington, and we need to start fixing that so we don't actually get those peaks in what now in most treatment plans, they don't design to cope with those peaks because it will be overdesigning. It will be a huge investment that is in most cases so necessary. So what they need to do is just to control how much and when that a peak of a sewage and rainwater is being dumped into the environment.
00:11:01
Speaker 2: Presumably when they were first designed in what the eighties and nineties, depending on where you were in the country they were designed. You know what the packet say is for waste water only.
00:11:14
Speaker 1: They were still designed for some portion of influence. We call it influence or infiltration to happen. And when we have a new sewer system, the infiltration and influence is minimum. But then as we have an aging infrastructure sewers, then we have to have some cracks in the system also mindholes that where the water can get into, so eventually that can increase. But again you're right, so say twenty thirty years ago the population wasn't of the size that it is now, so it's growing in some cases faster than expected. And also we have these weather extreme weather events that were not happening just ten twenty years ago, and we have now systems that are more superceptible to be damaged by these events. So it's also important to think of resilience. In most cases, in New Zealand, we have centralized with water timon plants. Basically we put all the eggs in a basket. If that goes wrong, then we don't have any alternative. So in some cases it may be a waste to consider decentralized systems. But again this is a huge investment we're talking about, so it's a big decision and it has to be done well considering risk and average assessment and res mitigation process.
00:12:41
Speaker 2: Well infrastructure New Zealand estimates they reckon about one hundred and twenty to one hundred and eighty five billion dollars is needed for water upgrades over the next thirty years. That's driven by a climate resilience. Wastewater facilities around the country have always been underfunded, right, been on the founder for years, sometimes decades. Are we just going to always be playing catch up if we don't write that two hundred billion dollar check, say.
00:13:10
Speaker 1: That's the risk when these kind of events happened, we are just well, in this case a more point a huge amount of money we have to invest it just to fix the plant again, just to get it back to how it was instead of actually upgrading or improving these systems. So it's always catching up. And also with more common heavy range events, this again it's it's like a risk that we might being behind. Yeah, so it's but I mean somethings are happening in a positive way. So now we have a national with what standard that came into a place just a few months ago at the end of twenty twenty five, and that will guide how we make decisions at the national level. Well, because in the past everything was handled at a local level, but consoles and that means that sometimes we were actually not learning from the experience somewhere else. We were just making local decisions and now we will be moving forward in a more articulated way.
00:14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and way more collaboration across the board. Hey, so something like I know that this is not wastewater, but something like havelocked North for instance. There, I suppose there'd be some people in that council who have very specific expertise to then pass on to everybody else. But if there wasn't you know that. I bet there's stuff like that happening all the time over the country and people just aren't collaborating.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: Yes, correct, Yeah, I think there is need to be a need for councils and operators to be collaborating more closely on this. Yeah, and it is a good example that you mentioned have looked North, because unfortunately it is only when these kind of events happen is that we start to pay attention. And big changes have actually happened in New Zealands since that. So there has been an investment in a deeper boreholes so we can get more better quality around water, also protecting the boreholes so we don't have the same situation of what happened in Headlock northware overflow stone water was actually getting into the well there is also now disinfection, so chlorination and you'll be disinfection also happening in many places. So things have been moving in the right direction. It's unfortunate that something like that had to happen to move faster. So maybe I'm hoping that with what happened with more points, other operators will then pay attention and say, Okay, we don't want to be in the same situation, we need to do something. Well.
00:15:52
Speaker 2: Plants like my point, I believe it was built in nineteen ninety eight, so they face twice normal sea rise in Wellington for example. As an engineer, what kind of retrofits or relocations make the most sense I suppose for those aging coastal facilities like that nationwide.
00:16:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it has to be made on that. I mean considering the situation a case by case basis, So I don't know exactly the situation at more point. But plants that are just off the coast, they are risks of sea level rising, so I think there is a need and they probably have it. I will be surprised if they don't have done a risk assessment to see what are the threats or the plant So Bloodings Landslide sea level rising, et cetera. Also, there is also the situation that population may be growing surrounding the plants, so there's no room for expansion, so that I push operators to maybe think of relocating a new West quad retainment plant.
00:17:14
Speaker 4: We're on our drive at the moment to make sure that we have as low as possible rates increase as we can in the next financial year. When facebook situations like this, we just have to make trade offs. And there's a lot of stuff we've got in the pipeline that would be nice to do, but the reality is the council is going to have to say, look, there's some stuff that we just can't do. Run into city council that's going to have to foot the bill for getting the plant back up and running further down the track, but have to work out who might be responsible, who might be liable, where we might keep contributions from. But it will fall on will into city council in the first instance.
00:17:49
Speaker 2: Beyond investment, I suppose writing that you know those billions and billions of dollars of chegs, how should New Zealand rethink wastewater planning?
00:18:01
Speaker 1: Well, as I mentioned before, the national standards with water standards are I think in the right direction, because now there is a matter of y is the the entity that is now handling at the national level what we do with our water and with water, so that can be then a step in the right direction. Also, I think, apart from the unfortunate event of this blockage at one point, whether it was trading, also in the news listening in the news, is that there was a situation of complaints to the the charge. So I think it might be just an operation. Actually it's not. Probably not like the plant is necessarily too old. It's probably an operational problem. So we need to pay more attention to that. So we we even with the resources that we have, we use it wisely properly.
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned before that a lot of the equipment that they'll need to figure out what's wrong and kind of fix the issue is coming in from overseas. Are there any places overseas that are simply just doing it better and that we should have a look at.
00:19:13
Speaker 1: Well, there are some countries also, maybe I'm thinking maybe countries with large coastal areas. Singapore has been for example, it's smaller in terms of size country than New Zealands, so this situation is different, but they have been doing very well with the resources that they have, and I think in New Zealand we have been also doing well in the past, but I think we are now lagging behind because we haven't been at the same pace as the demands. So we're infrastructuralist aging. The population is growing. There are some places I live in Royaliston near Characters and the town has been growing very fast in the last ten years. So the local water turning plant is near to reach's capacity so many years before it was initially planned. So this is against the situation where we are behind the changes. But yeah, there are some examples. I would probably think of Singapore as an example, but again it's more of a local situation that need to be considered.
00:20:22
Speaker 2: There's always a real push to build up and build out. So you mentioned Rolston obviously, and a lot of places in North Canterbury have popped up over the years. You've got Lincoln, You've got wood End, just things like that, and you know everyone wants to build more houses. Make ever, you know more people in Auckland, the populations growing. Is it an issue of we get excited about these projects and get excited about people moving places and living places, and we tend to forget about the you know, the wastewater, the boring stuff.
00:20:57
Speaker 1: I suppose, yeah, you're right. Think with water is one of these critical infrastructures that we actually probably don't don't think about it, so even though it is quite important for our daily lives, we just lost it and then forget about it out of side, out of mind. So and that usually leads to then also decision makers just putting it behind in the priority by often will be the things that are more visible, and that happens everywhere, not only in New Zealand, but also yes, you're right. So in terms of houses, I think it's a difficult situation. On the one hand, we need to increase our housing so we have a population that need houses, but also we need to I think it's important not to continue doing business as usual, so the way that we are growing is not necessarily the best way, and it's putting pressure on this kind of infrastructure. Is services like a drinking water supply, like with water, then we have roads and a number of things that we need to consider, and usually those things are those services that are just not at the forefront of the priorities.
00:22:09
Speaker 2: It's difficult, isn't it, because when people have those conversations about things being underfunded. Now you think about our hospital infrastructure, right, and that's just a real crisis area. And if you did have billions and billions of dollars to give away all of a sudden, like a genie just granted you three wishes, people would generally go straight towards will. Hospitals are underfunded. They've been underfunded for decades. You know, there's mold in some hospitals in this country, and then you've got classrooms, same situation, and wastewater is really yeah, it does kind of sit at the back of the pack.
00:22:44
Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, With so many needs and limited resources, it's difficult to make the decisions. We have many needs, like you're rightly highlighting over hospital infrastructure, it's also needs investment. And if you ask people what are the priorities that we're probably talking about that hospitals, they might be talking about the situation of the world, maybe transport and so on and so forth, and probably only a few of them will be saying, okay, we need to improve with water infrastructure because nobody sees it, so every we all assume that it's working well, that's being care of, but we sometimes don't know the real situation, and it's only when this happens and then we don't have the service so we can no longer use the toilet Los the toilets will realize, Okay, this is actually important. Yeah, So I think that that that puts this infrastructure in a difficult situation. Also decision makers might find it difficult. So I think it's important to make a national assessment of priorities and then start investing wisely in what is actually needed.
00:23:53
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Raccato.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: Thank you, and have a good day.
00:23:59
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidherld dot co dot enz The Front Page is hosted and produced by me Chelsea daniels Kine. Dickie is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer is Jane Ye. Follow the Front Page on the iheartapp or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.
