Untreated, unscreened wastewater has been discharged into Tarakena Bay. Check LAWA.org.nz before visiting beaches.
Untreated, unscreened wastewater has been discharged into Tarakena Bay. Check LAWA.org.nz before visiting beaches.

Between approximately 8 am on 25 June and 7 am on 26 June, the short outfall pipe discharged untreated wastewater into Tarakena Bay.

Signs are in place along the coastline to alert water users of areas which may be impacted by this event. Water quality samples will be collected from coastal locations once improved weather conditions allow. 

Check LAWA.org.nz before visiting beaches along the south coast. 

Public health information can be found on Health NZ's website. 
Wellington Water crews responding to wastewater overflow on State Highway 2
Wellington Water crews responding to wastewater overflow on State Highway 2

Our team is responding to a wastewater overflow on State Highway 2 which has stopped this afternoon. The overflow was from a manhole on the southbound lanes close to the Ngauranga exit, discharging into the habour through the stormwater drains.

While the overflow has stopped, our teams are working to clear a blockage which still remains. They are working at pace to identify the blockage and get this cleared. 

One southbound lane clasure remains in place approaching Ngauranga while work is underway.
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Your Water / The Network / Drinking Water / What's In Your Water / Fluoride At Water Treatment Plants

Fluoride at water treatment plants

We operate four water treatment plants in the Wellington metropolitan area on behalf of Greater Wellington Regional Council  who own these water treatment plants.   

 

These are:

Wellington region

  • Te Marua Water Treatment Plant
  • Wainuiomata Water Treatment Plant
  • Waterloo Water Treatment Plant
  • Gear Island Water Treatment Plant

 

We add fluoride to the water at the Wellington metropolitan treatment plants.

Our aim is to maintain a steady level of fluoride in the water at treatment plants that meets the Ministry of Health fluoride target of 0.7 – 1.0ppm. This is the amount recommended by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation to provide protection against tooth decay.

We also have controls in place to ensure we never supply consumers drinking water over the Maximum Acceptable Value (MAV) of 1.5ppm.

Stopping fluoride at Te Mārua and Gear Island Water Treatment Plants

In 2021, we stopped the fluoride facilities at the Te Mārua Water Treatment Plant in May and at the Gear Island Water Treatment Plant in November due to operational and health and safety issues, which meant we could not guarantee that we could add fluoride safely. At the time we didn’t tell anyone we did this, and we apologise for that, and the concern caused.

In March 2022, we announced that the fluoride facilities at both Te Mārua and Gear Island had been stopped but we provided people with an incorrect date for when we stopped fluoridation at the plants, which we corrected the next day. Again, we acknowledge that this falls short of the expectations of our customers and communities, and we apologise for the concern caused.

To fully understand why the fluoride facilities were turned off at the Te Mārua and Gear Island Water Treatment Plants and why our customers, community, Councils and our Board were not told of this in a timely and accurate manner, the Wellington Water Board commissioned an independent inquiry in March 2022.

The inquiry was undertaken by MartinJenkins and completed in late June 2022. The Board received and accepted all the inquiry’s recommendations in early July 2022. 

In November 2022, the Board formally closed out the inquiry after all the recommendations were implemented.

Restoring fluoride in the drinking water

We have worked at pace to safely restore fluoride at both plants. To do this we constructed two new fluoride facilities at Te Marua and Gear Island and in September 2022 these facilities were operational and reliably fluoridating the drinking water within the Ministry of Health target range.

As part of this work, we are also looking at improvements to the fluoride facilities at the Waterloo and Wainuiomata Water Treatment Plants to improve the consistency and reliability of fluoride levels at these plants. 

Every month we publish the average fluoride levels at each of the metropolitan Wellington water treatment plants. 

Fluoride updates and media releases

We have kept the public up to date throughout our work to restore fluoride at the Te Mārua and Gear Island Water Treatment Plants and to improve the reliability of fluoridation at the Wainuiomata and Waterloo Water Treatment Plants. This was done via weekly project updates.

We also issued a series of media releases for key announcements and milestones. See below for our media releases.