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Wastewater discharge - Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant
An ongoing issue at the Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant has again resulted in a discharge of partially treated wastewater into the Ruamahanga River. This occurred on Monday 27 January between 9.20am and 11.30am.
Wellington Water is sorry that this has happened again and for the delay in reporting the issue to the Council. Action is now under way to get in front of this issue and to improve protocols in communicating to both Council and customers.
Although discharging treated wastewater to the river is a consented activity under the right conditions, when the river is low these types of discharges are invariably a breach of resource consent.
The Martinborough Wastewater Treatment Plant will have a review in order for potential points of operational failure to be identified ahead of time; this work has been prioritised for the next few days.
This discharge event and the previous one involved issues with the irrigator, which meant that discharge to adjacent land didn’t happen. With the storage ponds being full and no discharge to land possible, the designed contingency is discharge to the river, which we know is unacceptable.
Authorities at Regional Public Health and Greater Wellington Regional Council as well as iwi and community liaison group representatives have been notified.
The first incident occurred between 9.45pm on Tuesday 14 January and 10am Wednesday 15 January 2020, this resulted in 90,000 litres of partially treated wastewater discharged to the Ruamahanga River.
This latest incident resulted in 100,000 litres of partially treated wastewater discharged to the river, as well as 300,000 litres of fully treated wastewater.
Due to the dilution factor in the river, it’s understood that public health and recreational water user risk from all discharges was negligible.
However, Wellington Water is committed to doing better with how wastewater discharges enter the environment and are working on options for this. A full incident response and investigation of the outcomes of this work will be released when completed.
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Poll: Have you kept trinkets from your life?
Many of us are sentimental about our childhoods and lives, and some even collect things to remember moments or people.
Share what you've held on to over the years and whether you still have it today. Feel free to share photos too, we'd love to see.
![Image](https://cdn.neighbourly.co.nz/images/cache/message_max_size/message_images/66b55d1c0cdbb8.40903288.jpeg?170410)
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88.6% Yes
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11.4% No
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Poll: Do you believe in ghosts?
Just for a little bit of fun, we'd love to know whether Kiwis believe in ghosts. What goes on in our communities that we don't know about!
Perhaps you've seen a ghost or lived in a haunted home in New Zealand. We'd love to know, so vote in our poll and share your experiences in the comments below.
![Image](https://cdn.neighbourly.co.nz/images/cache/message_max_size/message_images/66c285e1977587.42966837.jpeg?170410)
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55.6% Yes
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42.1% No
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2.2% Other - I'll share below
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This is a tough one, neighbours, can you figure out all of them?
Before any changes, I’m a garlic or spice.
My first is altered and I’m a hand-warming device.
My second is changed and I’m trees in full bloom.
The next letter change makes a deathly old tomb.
Change the fourth to make a fruit of the vine.
Change the last for a chart plotted with lines.
What was I? What did I become? What did I turn out to be?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed? No worries! Simply head here and click once on the Following button.
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