Moa Point Road to Recovery
The Recovery Road Map provides an indicative timeline and key milestones to restore the plant back to the way it was prior to the flooding, and address the design flaw identified in the hydraulic report.
The roadmap identifies key milestones that we’ll report back on regularly, so the community can hold us to account and keep track of our progress on the road to recovery. These dates are all indicative, and we will regularly report on our progress.
We know that every extra day the plant is not fully operational affects the community. Our teams are focused on restoring services as quickly and safely as possible, and we’ll keep the community up to date on our progress. We have built this timeframe to be realistic and achievable – but alongside this, we are doing all we can to accelerate delivery.
Frequently asked questions
-
When will the plant be fixed by, and resume normal operations?
Get regular updates ›On 20 May, we released the Recovery Road Map. The road map provides an indicative timeline and key milestones to restore the plant back to the way it was prior to the flooding, and address the design flaw identified in the hydraulic report. We’ll report back on these key milestones regularly, so the community can hold us to account and keep track of our progress on the road to recovery. These dates are all indicative, and we’ll continue to do all we can to accelerate delivery.
You can view the road map here.
While all major repairs will be completed in November and full treatment processes will be up and running, minor repairs may take a few more months.
When primary and secondary treatment are started up, the quality of wastewater being discharged out to Cook Strait will be gradually improved. Primary treatment will remove heavy particles like faecal matter and sand from the wastewater, and secondary treatment includes a biological process which breaks down waste, and ultraviolet disinfection. From this point, it may take 6 to 8 weeks for the bacteria to fully stabilise and UV disinfection to be fully effective. We will monitor the quality of this treated wastewater and provide this information to the community.
We’ve prioritised the work to get the core treatment functions of the plant up and running first, so we can get fully treated wastewater flowing through the long outfall pipe as soon as possible. The plant will be fully restored back to pre-4 February 2026 operations in February 2027. At this stage, we expect to have completed work on remediating the hydraulic issue in the bypass in late 2027. This issue was originally identified in the hydraulic report released in March. We may also be continuing work on previously planned aeration system renewal work at this time.
-
Why is it going to take this long to fix the plant?
The plant sustained serious damage, across a large area. More information on the damage can be found in the damage report, available on our website. We absolutely appreciate that every day the plant is offline makes a difference, so we’re working hard to bring the plant back into operation as quickly as possible. It’s important to be clear that this is an immense task. There are nearly 30 separate projects that form the full Moa Point recovery, taking place on a constrained site. Equipment needs to be manufactured and shipped. We’re taking every effort to move as quickly as possible, and as part of the recovery we have restarted and accelerated the major EIC project. This was already underway prior to the flooding, and we’ve had the benefit of having a lot of the equipment already in storage or being manufactured, shaving months off the recovery timeframe.
-
Is it safe to swim?
LAWA ›The public should follow LAWA’s advice on whether beaches are suitable for swimming.
Water sampling has shown that overall, the water near the shore has been within the acceptable limits for safe swimming in dry weather conditions. Some caution is still advised. The sample sites have not included areas out in the Cook Strait near the long outfall pipe, so activities further from the short such as surfing and diving should be conducted at people’s own risk.
Out of an abundance of caution, the recommended stand down period following the end of any discharges from the short outfall has increased from 48 to 72 hours. As we move into winter and are experiencing more frequent rain and strong southerlies, recent monitoring shows that water quality can take longer to return to acceptable levels. Heavy rain also increases urban runoff and stormwater discharges, which can affect water quality and is likely to be contributing to some of the high sampling results.
-
What are you doing to stop this from happening again?
There are two parts to the solution. To prevent a future flooding event, we are installing controls to automatically lock the inlet pumps (which control the flow of wastewater into the plant) if there is a risk of flooding detected in the UV outlet. We are also addressing the issue revealed by the hydraulic report. The report found that air can become trapped in the wastewater bypass pipeline, particularly when there is a high flow of wastewater passing through the plant. It is possible that trapped air could disrupt the flow of wastewater, pushing the wastewater backwards and flooding the plant. This risk is being actively and carefully managed until the bypass project is complete by limiting the amount of flow pumped to the plant. At this stage, we expect work on the bypass to be completed by late 2027.
-
Is the short outfall being used?
The short outfall is only being used in heavy rain, when the flow of wastewater to the plant is greater than the amount that can safely be pumped up to the plant and out the long outfall. As of 20 May, this has happened on four occasions. The chance of the short outfall being used will progressively decrease as recovery continues and the pumping capacity to the plant is increased.
Outside of the use of the short outfall in heavy rain, all wastewater is being screened and pumped through the long outfall, which is 1.8km long. Discharging wastewater out the long outfall into Cook Strait allows for greater dilution, and large inorganic solids like wet wipes and tampons are screened out.
The short outfall is the designed overflow point for the inlet pump station to the plant. It was originally built as the main outfall discharge location from 1899 to 1998, and was retained to discharge wastewater in emergency situations like an extreme weather event or mechanical failure to prevent untreated wastewater discharging back up the network where it would pose a greater risk to the community and environment. There is no existing consent for use of the short outfall.
The plant and the long outfall were commissioned at the same time, sending fully treated wastewater out the long outfall pipe. Prior to the plant and long outfall being built, all wastewater was discharged through the short outfall into Tarakena Bay with milliscreening treatment only.