CuriousCity: Fatbergs, stenchy sewers and thousands of litres of poo
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JESSY EDWARDS
Last updated 11:00, April 11 2016
Welcome to CuriousCity, our new weekly feature that answers your questions on how Wellington works. This week, Jessy Edwards asks "What happens after you flush?", and meets the cheeky chaps at the sewage treatment centre.
The lid comes off the sewage well with a "poof" of putrid gas and a flourish of flies.
"This really is the high point," City Care utilities operation manager Blair Dynan, who is wearing wraparound sunglasses and a toothy grin, says.
We're here to see what happens after you flush and – spoiler alert – it isn't pretty.
MAARTEN HOLL/ FAIRFAX NZ
Blair Dynan, City Care utilities operation manager.
Peer into the abyss, where the maintenance workers often have to go, and you'll see thick bubbles of yellow, globular fat floating on the surface of a pool of murky excrement.
Concealed under another cover nearby is a two-storey underground chamber where the sewage is pumped to the main pipe, the Interceptor.
On a bad day, when the water levels are high and the pumps are struggling, men like Dynan are in there battling to fix the things as the stenchy liquid rises higher than this reporter's mouth.
MAARTEN HOLL/ FAIRFAX NZ
Once the water has been treated to river quality level, it is pumped 1.9 kilometres out into Cook Strait.
"It's got up to 1500mm: they're not just splashing around," says City Care utilities team leader Sean Riley, a quietly spoken man with a handlebar moustache, sparkly blue eyes and a ring in his left ear.
When Wellingtonians flush too many things they shouldn't – wet wipes, paper towels, undies – the pumps get blocked.
Wellington Central is known for its fat and mobile phones. The railway station is known for its underpants. "They're forever pulling them out," Riley says.
MAARTEN HOLL/ FAIRFAX NZ
Stuart Pearce, left, the Veolia contract manager at Moa Point, and Alex van Paassen of Wellington Water. "We take all the chunky stuff out here," Stu says brightly, as the photographer dry wretches behind us.
Recently, Dynan and his team spent eight hours breaking down a monstrous 1.5m by 1.5m "fatberg" that had formed in this very hole, a consequence of being downstream from the restaurants and cafes of Courtenay Place.
"When you asked about the worst part, this is it," Riley says.
Up at the Moa Point Treatment Plant, Veolia contract manager Stuart Pearce – known as Stu – recalls his first day on the job, 13 years ago.
"I was inexperienced, I got a bit of shit on my lip," he recalls, matter-of-fact.
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Touring us around the plant, the Englishman, with bird-like features and chunky gold rings, tells us it processes a massive 70 million litres per day, turning it into river-quality water that gets pumped 1.8 kilometres out into Cook Strait.
I'd earlier bragged about my strong constitution, but walking through two weighted doors to the tanks, the pungent odour hits you like a wall, sucking up your nostrils before tickling the back of your tongue with a grassy zest.
"We take all the chunky stuff out here," Stu says brightly, as the photographer dry wretches behind us.
"There's some poos, a tampon – we call them mice – that is a condom, some carrot there, some more carrot ..."
I'm feeling woozy.
But I can't complain. On the first Tuesday of every month, his team does the "disgusting" basket clean, pulling out all the bits and pieces that have made it through the pumps all the way to the plant; 10 tonnes a year of material that just shouldn't be there.
There are some unusual things too. "On the odd occasion they find money, and years ago we used to have a big box full of sex toys," Pearce says.
Wellington Water community engagement manager Alex van Paassen says Wellingtonians can make a difference to the city, and to these workers, by not flushing what they shouldn't.
"Just go by the three Ps," he says. "Pee, poo and paper."
After all, the consequence is an extra quarter of a million ratepayer dollars spent on maintenance, and some crappy nights out for our unsung underground heroes.
- Stuff
View the full article here.
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