Wastewater

Napier's Long Term Plan consultation is now closed. 

Thank you for taking the time to make a submission. Your feedback is really important to us. All feedback will be considered before Council adopts the Long Term Plan on 30 June 2021. 

As the impacts of climate change and natural disasters become increasingly concerning, our focus shifts to our network’s ability to cope with these types of events.

Our plan is to concentrate our efforts in areas that will give us the best improvements, while looking after what we already have in place. Anything we do over the next 10 years should enable our system to be more resilient to environmental events and meet the city’s expected growth. It is also important any work we do is compliant with resource consents and Government standards.

A key aim is to make sure the wastewater that flows out to sea is as clean as possible before it is discharged.

Over the past year, our focus has been to fix the leak in our outfall pipe - the pipe that takes the sewage out to sea. Although this repair is now complete, the pipe still needs to be replaced as it is at the end of its life. We’re looking at the options for this now – we think a full replacement will take about six years with consents, design and construction processes taken into consideration.

We also have a plan to upgrade the pump station that moves the wastewater through the outfall pipe. Work has already started on creating storage for our wastewater at the treatment plant (the big tanks with filters that remove solid waste and contaminants from the wastewater) so that if we need to shut down for maintenance and repair work, we can. This project is planned for next summer and will be helpful to manage wastewater during flooding events.

Key projects:

• Outfall pipe replacement ($45.5million – in 2021-26)
• Outfall pump station upgrade ($7.1 million in 2025-27)
• Additional biological trickling filter at the treatment plant ($1.3 million 2029-31 with a total of $17.8 million over the next 30 years
• Wastewater treatment plant upgrades and replacements ($2.2 million – 2021-31, a total of $146.5 million over the next 30 years)