Pong ponds now offer sweeter outlook

Gillian Driver and Michael Shepherd of Mt Albert enjoy the Ambury Park bird hide, near the restored Manukau waterfront. Picture / Geoff Dale

The beaches don't have names but unlike Mission Bay or St Heliers, there are no traffic jams, no rollerbladers or skateboarders hogging the footpath and parking is a doddle.

But Watercare, responsible for a $150 million upgrade at the site of its old sewage treatment ponds in the Manukau Harbour, is cagey about whether it is safe to swim.

Watercare spokesman Mark McLauchlan said a two-year report on water quality was three-quarters of the way through and until it was completed, no guarantees on the safety of swimming could be given.

The stretch of Mangere foreshore lapped by the former ponds has been shunned by Aucklanders for decades. The restoration work was part of Watercare's $450 million Project Manukau wastewater treatment upgrade and includes a 6km walkway from Ambury Regional Park in the north to the Otautau Stonefields in the south.

More than 270,000 trees and shrubs have been planted, seven beaches re-created and wooden bird "hides" built so visitors can spy on migratory bar-tailed godwits and knots that fly here from as far away as Siberia and Alaska.

The coastal walkway will eventually become part of the 2920km Long Pathway, Te Araroa, running the length of the country.

The Manukau has a long history of pollution. Before the oxidation ponds were built in 1960, abattoirs, tanneries and households poured so much waste into the harbour that resulting fumes turned house paint black.

Watercare now boasts that the faecal coliform count here - a standard measure of sewage pollution - has been cut 10,000-fold and other contaminants reduced 97 per cent to "virtually zero".

"I'm proud of what's been achieved. You can see fish jumping where none have been for decades," said deputy chairman Ian Parton.

Joseph Makara, 45, picnicking with his family on one of the unnamed beaches, wasn't worried about eating mullet he had caught but was unsure about going for a dip.

"I can think of better places to swim but eventually people will swim here," he said.

Mr McLauchlan said it was unlikely the small beaches, with their imported shell, would be named.

The last stage of the coastal restoration will be in May, when a 2.2km by 150m lagoon will be flooded by 3m of seawater as the final embankment of the old ponds is breached.

Wild walk

Benefits of a walk on the wild side:

* Parking galore.

* No rollerbladers, skateboarders, tandem bikes, traffic noise, high-rise apartments or Tamaki Drive gridlock.

* Bar-tailed godwits and knots fly from Siberia and Alaska to get here, so it must be special.