{"id":284268,"date":"2026-02-14T19:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T19:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284268\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T19:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T19:46:07","slug":"wellington-water-chair-nick-leggett-resigns-over-moa-point-sewage-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/284268\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellington Water chair Nick Leggett resigns over Moa Point sewage disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Transporting<\/p>\n

\nNick Leggett.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Angus Dreaver\n<\/p>\n

The chair of Wellington Water has resigned following the Moa Point crisis.<\/p>\n

Nick Leggett said the failure of the Wellington treatment plant<\/a> was deeply serious and had affected the environment, public health and the community.<\/p>\n

A failure at the treatment plant on Wellington’s south coast<\/a> earlier this month has been spilling 70 million litres of untreated sewage a day into Cook Strait.<\/p>\n

Labelled an environmental disaster<\/a> by the city’s mayor, Wellington Water has warned it could be months<\/a> before the plant is operating again and the waters are again swimmable.<\/p>\n

Leggett said leadership carried responsibility, and stepping aside would allow Wellington Water to focus on fixing the problems and restoring public trust.<\/p>\n

An independent government review would examine the causes of the failure. Leggett said he would fully cooperate with that process.<\/p>\n

His last day will be Monday. Deputy chair Bill Bayfield will take over as interim chair.<\/p>\n

Leggett had been in the role since 2023.<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero, a daily newsletter<\/a> curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nick Leggett. Photo: RNZ \/ Angus Dreaver The chair of Wellington Water has resigned following the Moa Point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-284268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}