Watercare has today made an immediate compensation
payment of $1 million to Aquaculture New Zealand for
distribution to 10 oyster farmers impacted by the recent
wastewater overflow in Warkworth. The company will work with
Aquaculture New Zealand to reach a final resolution through
an external assessment process.
Watercare chief
executive Jamie Sinclair says this payment relates solely to
the most recent overflow, for which Watercare has committed
to make things right.
“The incident was caused by a
unique chain of events – a power surge that was compounded
by our alert system and monitoring not operating as
intended. We are appointing an external expert to assist us
in quantifying the impact on the oyster
farmers.
“I’ve written to the farmers to reiterate
my apology and confirm the payment of $1 million, as well as
inform them of the external assessment process. After the
incident, I said we were committed to making things right,
and we’ve worked quickly to turn that commitment into
action.
“We know this disruption comes at a very
challenging time, just as the harvest season was at its
peak. Today’s payment is intended to provide immediate
support, and we hope to have the assessment process complete
before Christmas.”
Watercare put forward the $1
million offer of immediate compensation on Friday 7
November, with the agreement being signed by Aquaculture New
Zealand earlier today.
Details of the event and
Watercare’s response
The incident was caused by a
power surge that tripped the pumps and caused the storage
tank to fill, leading to a wastewater overflow from
Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning [29-30
October].
Advertisement – scroll to continue reading
Watercare estimates 1200 cubic metres of
wastewater overflowed from the pump station. While the
amount that entered the river is unclear, it’s estimated
to be about half. The remainder was contained in a
stormwater pond next to the pump station. This has since
been emptied, cleaned and refilled.
The overflow was
compounded by the alarm system and monitoring not operating
as intended, which meant the issue was not identified as
quickly as it should have been.
The pump station was
stabilised, and normal operations were restored on Thursday
30 October.
Two investigations are underway – one
into the cause of the power surge and another reviewing the
alarm system and monitoring. External parties have been
appointed to provide independent feedback.
Watercare
remains committed to learning from this incident and
ensuring it cannot happen
again.
Notes:
- Every day, we supply
about 440 million litres of safe drinking water to 1.7
million people in Auckland. We also collect and treat their
wastewater. - Over the next 10 years, we will carry
out more than 1000 projects to improve and expand our water
and wastewater infrastructure – investing an average of
$3.8 million every day ($13.8 billion in total). - Our
infrastructure investment programme will help to keep our
precious environment healthy by reducing the frequency of
wastewater overflows onto land and into
waterways.
Source link
