Finish line in sight for our flood recovery programme

At the two-year anniversary of the summer storm events, we are on track to have most repairs in our flood recovery programme completed by the middle of the year.

Auckland’s water and wastewater infrastructure suffered extensive damage during the Auckland Anniversary Flood and Cyclone Gabrielle.

Construction and delivery manager Johan Gerritsen says the intensity of the storms caused numerous landslips, some of which took out watermains and wastewater infrastructure across the region.

“The storm and cyclone caused an enormous amount of damage to our networks – particularly to the wastewater network in hilly parts of Auckland, and the infrastructure in our western dam catchments.

“It also caused major issues at two water treatment plants – in Muriwai and Pukekohe – which we’ve since put back in service.

“Our immediate focus after the storms was clearing slips and installing temporary wastewater bypasses to protect people and the environment from overflows.

“Now, two years on, we’re about three quarters of the way through our $80 million, Auckland-wide flood recovery programme.”

Designs have been finalised for the remaining work, most of which is small-scale repairs and permanent residential connections with minimal customer impact.

“With our permanent repairs, we’re not just replacing things like-for-like – there's been a huge amount of planning to ensure our infrastructure is more resilient to extreme weather events in the future,” Gerritsen says.

Major achievements to date:

• Pukekohe Water Treatment Plant was brought back into service (December 2024)

• Five major repair projects completed in our Waitākere dam catchments

• Muriwai Water Treatment Plant was put back in service – October 2023

• Permanently reconnected 200 properties to the wastewater network

Gerritsen says over the next couple of months we will have multiple crews working across different pockets of Auckland to complete permanent repairs.

“Right now, we’re making great progress on the Judges Bay wastewater upgrade, where we are installing a small prepackaged submersible wastewater pump station, along with a rising main and gravity sewer around the Parnell Rose Garden.

“Once complete, this upgrade will increase local network capacity, significantly reducing the frequency of wet weather overflows in Parnell and allowing us to remove the black Safeswim pin from Judges Bay.”

Gerritsen says great progress has also been made in our Waitākere dam catchments areas, where slips from both summer storm events caused major damage to the network.

“Since the storm events, we have been repairing pipe bridges, constructing retaining walls, and reinstating accessways damaged by slips across the western catchment area.

“Our flood recovery works around western dams have been incredibly complex due to their remoteness, making accessing to clear the slips and put robust and permanent repairs in place particularly challenging.

“To undertake these repairs, we’ve had to think outside the box about how we go about designing, building and transporting equipment and materials to each site such as: employing the use of helicopters to transport equipment and materials to and from each of the sites.”

Gerritsen says on the North Shore and around Titirangi, we are working to permanently reconnect the last 300 houses to the wastewater network, where temporary solutions had been in place to prevent overflows.

“We want to thank customers who have been impacted by the floods for their patience while we carried out works to connect them back into the network.

“We also thank our crews and contractors for the hard work they have put in to help us deliver this massive programme of work.”