Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Sam O'Brien: Wellington Eastern Ward Councillor on the Moa Point sewage leak

Transcript

Sam O'Brien: Wellington Eastern Ward Councillor on the Moa Point sewage leak · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Go to Wellington. Now this is the long weekend that
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you can't swim on the south coast. Don't go near it.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: They wreckon equipment failure at male point the water treatment plant.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Not quite sure what caused it, but they say that
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: untreated wastewater is spewing into the ocean. Local city councilor
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Sam O'Brien's with me, Now, Hey, Sam.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Come on, Ryan, thanks sending me on.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Any clarity on what happened yet.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: At the stage it's still pretty unknown from my understanding.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: We had some heavy rain and it appears like there's
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: been some sort of failure and it's led to wastewater
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: backing up one of the outful pipes and essentially flooding
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the treatment planet itself.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, and so can staff actually work in there, like,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: can you fix it if the things flooded and start
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: had to evacuate.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Well, at the moment, I guess the process is to
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: pump out that wastewater that's gotten in and then you
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: can start going in and attempting to sort of assist
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the damage in terms of the electrical stuff and things.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: We don't really know what the scale of that damage
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: is at the moment.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Right, And When you say pump it out, where do
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: you pump it out too?
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that process, but I would assume
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: that it would be some sort of thing that gets
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: trucked away to somewhere that it can be dealt with.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: How long do you do you expect this will go
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: on before people can go swimming again?
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess the first stage is getting pumps working again,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: which will mean that the wastewater can be discharged to
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: the long outfall, which will make it safer, and that
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: could be done within three days or so they estimate,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: but that may not make it safe enough to swim
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: for people. So the stage it's really unknown how long
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: it'll take to resolve it.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Is that to get it out to the pipe that
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: goes in two k's out to the ocean.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a columbar our antcook straight, which means that
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: it sort of yeah, can disperse further, not it's not.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: The short outfall is essentially going straight into the bay.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Sam, are you happy with Wellington Water what they're doing their.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Response on the short term, I would say, you know,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: you're doing their best to resolve a situation and we
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: don't know what's caused it. But over the long term.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Obviously it's an ongoing issue. This isn't an isolated thing,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and it's disappointing to see yet another example of our
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: water infrastructure failing in such a terrible way.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a terrible way. Where's your what water
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: are you? And where do you live?
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: So I'm the multi cutting the eastern ward which includes
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: sort of Mirmarlisle Bay area, which is where the treatment
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: plan is.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Right, so you won't be going swimming anytime soon? What
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: ticket did you run on, Sam? I've not heard of
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you before. This is all I'm just curious. Are you
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: are left to righty?
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: What are you? I'm a labor councilor okay?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And do you what where do you sit with the infrastructure?
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: You want to get this fixed as a priority number
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: one instead of the disco lose all that sort of stuff.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you could sum it up like that. Obviously,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: the management of water infrastructure is a big deal, and
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: we're moving to a new water entity and I'm pretty
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: keen to ensure that moving from Wellington Water to our
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: new entity doesn't just mean that we repeat exactly the
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: same mistakes we had with flying to water.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: All right, Sam, How old are you?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I'm twenty five, okay, all right, I thought.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: You sounded quite young. No good to know, good to know,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and we'll just get on and fix it, would you.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: It's planned all right?
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Cheer Sam, appreciate it. Sam O'Brien, Wellington Eastern Water Councilor for.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: More from early edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:42
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• 3:46
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