Remuera residents gag at water

Remuera residents say they’re being plagued by dead eels, sewage floating down streams and smells so pungent it makes them gag.

The waterways around Hobson Bay have become a hotspot for faecal contamination and it could be years before the water runs completely clear again.

According to the Ministry for the Environment, a waterway becomes a health risk if it has any more than 280 units of E. coli per half a cup of water. This month half a cup of water scooped from the stream through Thomas Bloodworth Park in Remuera was a whopping 700 times over that threshold with 200,000 units of E. coli.

Charlotte Winstone leads a walking school bus route along the adjacent Shore Rd, and saw the effects worsening in weeks of dry weather leading up to the Covid-19 lockdown.

“We were literally all holding our noses as we walked past and it smelt really strongly of sewage. So that was a pretty horrible experience,” she said. “One of our walking school buses saw a dead eel, and it was really sad for them to see that was the effect of the polluted water.”

Auckland Council has tacked up signs to warn people in Thomas Bloodworth Park to steer clear of the contaminated water, and it’s done the same at connected waterways in six other parks and around Hobson Bay.

Local Margot Nicholson said the contamination had put a stop to a lot of what the area was enjoyed for. “We have local people who catch fish and we kayak, there are paddleboarders, jetskiing ... but it’s also a significant ecological area with really beautiful bird life, marine life.”

Council spokesman Nick Vigar said contamination was coming from two sources. One was a “dry weather” network fault that should be fixed within months, but the other was overflow problems in wastewater pipes around the eastern bays which would take years to fix.