Clean-up promise for ferry odours

The Waitematā Harbour, pictured during stormy weather. Photo / Sylvie Whinray

Transport bosses are promising to clean up unpleasant smells wafting from a new waterfront sewage pumping system at Auckland’s ferry terminal, upsetting some waiting passengers.

“Engineers put in a venting system to cope with the smells but the reality is, I don’t think anyone has operated a system on this scale in New Zealand before,” Auckland Regional Transport Network commercial manager Simon Laird said.

The new pump-out system at the ferry terminal, to save the Waitematā Harbour from thousands of litres of raw sewage each year, was scheduled to start operating last year but was delayed by technical problems.

The likely solution to the odour problem was an air filtration system, Laird said, but the smell was minor and probably less offensive than diesel fumes around the wharf area.

“We wouldn’t want the public to get the impression it’s something that’s not being controlled. It very much is,” he said.

The system cost $400,000 to set up and wages will add thousands more dollars each year.

Fullers Group Ferries general manager Michael Fitchett said he had been phoned a couple of times by passengers about a “significant smell” during the vacuuming out of ferry holding tanks.

“But at least [the sewage] is not in the harbour,” he said.

Laird said other ferry companies were not using the new system and possibly never would because their boats had no holding tanks and were not designed for them.

“Smaller ferries that might carry, say, 40 or 50 or even 100 passengers, there’s just not physically enough space in the hull to do anything.”

From the new waterfront pump-out system, the sewage goes to the Manukau wastewater treatment plant.