Published 20/05/2026
Wellington Water and Wellington City Council release Moa Point road map to recovery
Wellington Water and Wellington City Council have released a recovery roadmap and the second damage report for the Moa Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, providing the community with a clear timeline toward restoring the plant.
Wellington Mayor Andrew Little says release of the information will provide the community with greater visibility and confidence in the progress being made to restore the plant.
“The failure of the Moa Point Wastewater Treatment Plant has caused massive disruption to people, communities and businesses who are connected to the south coast.
“This is a turning point for the recovery of Moa Point. We know the road ahead to recovery, and local communities, businesses and people who use and enjoy the south coast can at least look forward with a degree of certainty about when the plant will be fully restored,” says the Mayor.
Wellington Water Chief Operating Officer Charles Barker says the road map sets out what
will be achieved and when.
“We’ll report against these milestones so people can track progress and hold us to account,”
says Charles. “A key date for the community to hold us to is November, when major recovery works are expected to be complete and we’ll be able to start sending wastewater through full treatment processes.
“Secondary treatment—including biological treatment—will be restarted, which will gradually improve the quality of wastewater being discharged out to Cook Strait.
“Every effort is being made to restore the plant as quickly and safely as possible, while looking out for opportunities to make the plant more resilient, efficient and reliable. We know every additional day the plant is not fully operational makes a difference,” he says.
Since the flooding on 4 February, the plant has been operating in a limited capacity, with screened wastewater discharged via the long outfall into Cook Strait while recovery work proceeds.
Restoring the plant is a complex process involving nearly 30 separate projects, carefully sequenced to bring systems safely back online as quickly as possible, while identifying opportunities to make improvements or refurbishments along the way.
Teams have already restarted major upgrade projects that were underway before the flooding, including the UV and EIC (electrical, instrumentation and control) upgrades. With equipment already procured or being manufactured, work has been able to resume quickly - putting the recovery months ahead of where it would otherwise be.
In addition to getting the plant back into operation, work is also underway to address the design issue identified in the hydraulic report.
While work continues to recover the plant, there may still be occasional discharges via the short outfall pipe during heavy rainfall events. These are expected to reduce significantly as the plant is able to pump more wastewater out the long outfall.
Editor notes
Wellington Water is owned and fully funded by Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council, and Upper Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and South Wairarapa District Council. All six councils are equal shareholders.
Our councils own the water infrastructure in the region, and they task us to manage the infrastructure and deliver water services to our communities.
Wellington Water is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board and our organisation receive overall leadership and direction from the Wellington Water Committee, which are also responsible for appointing members to the Board.
The Wellington Water Committee is made up of representatives from our council owners and mana whenua.