Watercare is ignoring the plight of many Herne Bay residents facing sewer blockages resulting from tree root intrusion into old clay pipes leading into their properties.
Many of these pipes, on public land, were put down more than a century ago and Watercare has no plans to replace them, or even maintain them unless there is a sewer blockage.
While trees can add beauty to a street, the combination of tree roots and old Watercare pipes can lead to constant sewer blockages and gully trap overflows.
Most of these blockages occur between the main street sewer feed and the boundary of a private residence. Usually houses have plastic pipes and so tree roots are unlikely to penetrate the plastic, normally growing around the pipes rather than through them.
When this occurs, Watercare will visit and unblock the pipes. But Watercare doesn’t conduct regular maintenance of its pipes, leading to many residents having had multi-blockages over a number of years.
One Marine Parade resident, who is frustrated by sewer blockages, and wants Watercare to check his pipes regularly so it doesn’t happen again, got the following response to a request for regular checking of the sewer feeder pipes leading into his property:
“Unfortunately, unless another fault occurs, Watercare do not do maintenance checks.”
Herne Bay Road is a street where there have been regular repairs to street pipes because of constant sewer overflows. The trees bordering the properties give the street a certain appeal, but the roots are viciously rampant on Watercare underground pipes.
Michael and Caitlin Wright have lived in Herne Bay Road for more than 10 years and have had multiple visits from Watercare to address stormwater and sewage flooding events due to blocked pipes.
Says Michael: “Although Watercare has pumped and water blasted the pipes in order to clear them, the standard response is that the roots are too thick to cut through with their equipment.
“The clay pipes are so damaged that their equipment is at risk of getting damaged, therefore the pipes are never completely unblocked,” he says.
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“We have had a couple of pipes leading from our boundary to the main sewer line repaired but not replaced. By Watercare’s own admission, until the pipes are replaced with a plastic/polythene version, the problems will continue,“ he says.
Michael believes Watercare should be maintaining these pipes and ensuring they are blockage free.
“Watercare is not maintaining the pipes and delivering on the service they are being contracted to undertake.“
Watercare will often pay for repairs to blocked pipes on private property but only if it can be proven a sewage spill resulted from a leaky pipe on public land. This can only be achieved by sending a camera into the pipe to show the blockage is not on private land. But in the event of a blocked sewer overflowing through a gully trap all around a house, the resident hasn’t got the time to wait for Watercare to visit and check the location of the breakage.
So, they get a plumber to clear the pipes of roots and contact Watercare once the problem has been fixed.
Brian Coleman has lived in Herne Bay Road for 35 years and has experienced multiple issues with blocked drains.
“We have been told by Watercare that the main sewer that runs down the middle of Herne Bay Road has major problems,“ he said.
“Watercare also advised us that the root infiltrations are so extensive and large, that the utility cannot totally clear roots from either the main sewer or our connections, so all repairs are only partial and temporary," he said.
Like Brian, Jodi McAlpine, another Herne Bay Road resident has had five blocked pipes and sewer overflows from broken pipes on public land.
Our association believes that it is unacceptable for Herne Bay or any other Auckland resident to know for certain that their property will be continually subject to sewer spills and for Watercare not to be proactive and check pipes on public land.
Also, there must be a case for replacing all these ancient clay pipes as soon as practicable. The clay pipes servicing homes in Herne Bay are fully depreciated and must therefore be due for replacement.
There must come a time when the cost of repairs and compensation exceeds the cost of re-piping at least the feeder pipes from the main street sewer line to residents’ properties.
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