Wastewater upgrade prevents sewage flowing into harbour

Over the past two years, Te Rā Nui - Eastern Porirua development (Te Rā Nui) has replaced over 3km of aging wastewater pipes running through Bothamley Park, improving te taiao (the environment) and enabling much-needed new homes to be built.

Around 40,000m³ of raw sewage will now be prevented from flowing into Kenepuru Stream and Te-Awarua-o-Porirua harbour every year, thanks to the completion of the significant wastewater network upgrades.

Te Rā Nui Project Director, Will Pennington says Ngāti Toa Rangatira and the community were the main drivers behind this legacy project.

“While enabling more homes was always a key focus for the development, it was clear even from early conversations about Te Rā Nui that protecting and enhancing the environment was a priority for both mana whenua and local residents. The completion of the Bothamley Park project goes a long way to achieving that.

“The new pipes, which are double the size of the old pipes at almost a meter wide, are also made of more durable materials, making them long lasting and more resilient during natural events like earthquakes. Of course, most importantly, they prevent around 16 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of sewage from flowing into the awa and harbour every single year.

“In addition, by undertaking these works we also had the opportunity to improve the look and feel of the park, too.”

While upgrading the pipes, they were lain underground, making them less visible to park goers. Rubbish, including trollies, was removed from the park and stream, and 1.8km of tracks were resurfaced, making them easier to access.

“A lot of thanks go to our civils and infrastructure experts Te Aranga Alliance - Higgins and Brian Perry Civil, Goodmans, Beca, Orogen and Harrison Grierson - who completed this challenging, complex infrastructure upgrade on time and on budget,” says Will.

“Most importantly, I want to thank the people of Porirua and the wider community for their patience while these works have been underway. While we appreciate it may have been disruptive at times, these works were essential to enable more homes to be built here in the future. We are confident this important mahi will make a positive difference for both current and future residents for generations to come.”

The project is giving back to the community in other ways, too. Te Rā Nui partners have collaborated with local jobs and skills provider Le Fale, Mahi Toa, and Rāranga Building Careers to create the Environmental Cadetship programme, supporting local residents to gain valuable qualifications and on the job training.

The cadetship helps improve the local environment by growing, planting and maintaining more than 100,000 native plants, while giving up to 30 local cadets the opportunity to acquire new skills to support them into future employment.

Later this year, Te Rā Nui will be starting construction on a new wetland at the bottom (northern end) of Cannons Creek and an additional reservoir to help supply clean drinking and emergency water to residents living in eastern Porirua and parts of Whitby.