Nelson residents pooped by wait
Heather Walker didn’t need a heavy weather event to test her Nelson property’s wastewater capacity.
The Gracefield St resident has been well aware of rain-related sewage issues around her home over the last six years.
Walker had recorded at least 12 instances of overflow in that time, which had invariably left her to clean up the toilet paper, fecal matter and tampons left behind
She said last Sunday’s downpour had once again resulted in a messy aftermath that she had become accustomed to.
‘‘It’s a bit third-world, to be honest, whatever’s gone into peoples’ toilets comes out there - I mean come on, this is where we’re growing our vegetables.’’
The problem centred around a sewer manhole on Walker’s property, which had been in place when she bought the Annesbrook section.
As well as going through her garden and property, the raw sewage had also flowed into her two neighbours’ houses and down into nearby Jenkins Creek.
Other side-effects of the overflow episodes included her downstairs toilet gurgling, water levels fluctuating and an overall smell of raw sewage.
‘‘It’s a bit wearying to be honest - I asked for an update sometime back and it seems that we can expect anything up to another six years of this ... I was like ‘ you’ve got to be joking.’’’
Walker was also worried about the potential health effects on neighbouring families and her own grandkids who regularly visited her.
She had kept a record of the overflows and had made numerous enquiries to the Nelson City Council to get the situation remedied. However, a video taken by Walker just last week showed she was still coming up dry for a solution.
‘‘That’s where we are right now- just waiting and kind of stuck until next time.
‘‘There’s no way we could sell this property - it kind of holds over your head and until this is sorted we can’t move on, you can’t dump this on someone else,’’ Walker said.
Grant Wilkins has lived at his Murphy St address for 10 years and said his stormwater problems have seen his back yard flooded on multiple occasions.
‘‘It overflows quite often but this is the second time that it’s been this bad and I’m always the worst affected.
‘‘Last time it was further down [the street] but I still got nailed.’’
While council staff had assured him the stormwater pipes around his property were working adequately, Wilkins said the present infrastructure was not meeting the current needs of local residents.
‘‘The way it looks to me is my house is 70-years-old and nothing’s been done in that time.
‘‘But it’s been subdivided further up the road and everyone’s had their stuff upgraded while down here it’s just bottlenecking.’’
NCC group manager infrastructure Alec Louverdis said the council and its contractors did their best to respond dur- ing heavy rain events with a priority on protecting life in the first instance and then vital infrastructure of the city.
‘‘The recent heavy rain and the recent storm surge were both extreme events. During such events both the stormwater and waste water systems come under huge pressure due to stormwater getting into sewers, often via cross connections or old or broken pipes.’’
He urged all residents to prepare accordingly when a weather event is forecast.
This included clearing sumps of leaf fall and rubbish, clearing guttering and having sandbags on hand if a property was prone to flooding.
‘‘Residents may not realise the significant impact that non-compliant practices such as feeding downpipes from roofs into gully traps or low lying gully traps collecting rainfall from back yards has on the system overall - gully traps empty into the sewerage system, not the stormwater system.’’
Louverdis said there was an ongoing programme of work in place to address stormwater issues, which involved upgrading both older sewerage infrastructure as well as increasing capacity within the stormwater system.
Funds will also be allocated in the 2018-28 Long Term Plan which will be available for public consultation from 23 March.
Recent major projects to address this include the Hampden Little Go Stream stormwater upgrade, Corder Park Sewer Pump station upgrade and Greenmeadows stormwater upgrades.
Projects currently under way include the York Stream, Saxton Creek stormwater upgrades and the Neale Park pump station upgrade.