Pump stations set for priority after recent sewage spills

Soldiers work feverishly to sandbag the flooded Matarawa stream behind them from encroaching further into Kowhai Park in Wanganui East.

Overloaded wastewater pumping stations in two Wanganui suburbs were the root cause of sewage spills into the suburb during the height of last week's floods.

As a result, Wanganui District Council's engineering staff are looking at making some changes.

Mark Hughes, the council's infrastructure manager, said a high volume of stormwater swamped the pumping stations in Jones St in Wanganui East and at Boyd Ave in Aramoho, causing them to overflow.

"This is what caused the sewage to go into the Matarawa Stream," Mr Hughes said.

As a first step, he said, a bigger pump has already been installed in Jones St and that will be repeated in Boyd Ave.

Equipment has also been installed at all 34 pumping stations to monitor flow data. There are 28 stations in the city and six outside the city boundary.

Mr Hughes said other data gathering equipment has been installed across the network and once the data has come in from these sites then council staff will be able to carry out performance and modelling of all the assets.

"In the next few weeks, we will be analysing what we can do to improve the situation across the city and we will incorporate a prioritised list of improvements into the [council's] annual planning process," he said.