No one was in the plant the night of the failure, he said, but noted it was not standard practice for wastewater treatments to be manned overnight, and the Moa Point plant is monitored remotely. Wellington Water had previously said a duty manager was alerted to the incident following an alarm activation and Fire and Emergency New Zealand alert. Raw sewage continues to be pumped out to the Cook Strait from the Moa Point plant’s long outfall pipe near the mouth of Lyall Bay following the total plant failure in early February. The “catastrophic failure” happened while remedial work was being carried out, Wellington Water said at the time. Raw sewage from the Moa Point wastewater treatment plant washed ashore at Tarakena Bay in early February.

Source: New Zealand Herald March 20, 2026 02:08 UTC