\u201cThe interim report will not be released at this time, following advice from the Crown Review Team that doing so could risk prejudicing investigations or enforcement action by the regional council, as well as any potential commercial or legal action arising from the incident,\u201d Watts told the Herald in a statement.<\/p>\n
Local Government Minister Simon Watts says while the public deserve answers on the Moa Point failure, there is a legal risk in release the interim report’s findings publicly. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand the frustration of those affected by the Moa Point incident, you deserve answers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy priority is ensuring the review is completed properly and the Crown Review Team\u2019s natural justice obligations are met.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final report is due by the end of August, and Watts said he would release that report \u201cas soon as practicable after it is finalised\u201d.<\/p>\n
Officials have not ruled out legal action over the failure, with the Greater Wellington Regional Council investigating possible breaches of the Resource Management Act.<\/p>\n
Govt \u2018not taking Moa Point seriously enough,\u2019 Genter says<\/p>\n
The revelations have been described as \u201creally disappointing\u201d by local Rongotai MP and Green Party infrastructure spokesperson Julie Anne Genter.<\/p>\n
Genter earlier advocated for transparency, calling for the Crown review to be held through public meetings.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people will appreciate that there will be legal sensitivities but, at the very least, Wellingtonians deserve a timeframe for the release of this report,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be so bad if the problem had been fixed but it hasn\u2019t, over the last five months around 10.5 billion litres of untreated wastewater has flowed into the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe feedback I get is that people feel there\u2019s been a lack of urgency from the Government when it comes to solving this huge problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Genter said further delays for answers will, for many Wellingtonians \u201creinforce the idea that the Government is not taking Moa Point seriously enough\u201d.<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s Wellington issues spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said it was \u201cimportant the full report is delivered sooner rather than later so the disaster at Moa Point doesn\u2019t happen again\u201d.<\/p>\n
Verrall earlier hit out<\/a> at \u201cradio silence\u201d and a lack of information from Wellington Water following the failure.<\/p>\n Wellington Mayor Andrew Little said the interim report is ultimately \u201cfor the minister to release when he decides to\u201d, noting Watts was being guided by the advice of the Crown Review team.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve said consistently that the public deserves answers and full transparency about what happened at Moa Point,\u201d Little said in a statement.<\/p>\n Wellingtonians\u2019 untreated wastewater continues to be discharged from a 1.8km pipe into the Cook Strait, while the plant remains inoperable.<\/p>\n Frustration over the disaster has mounted, with South Coast locals packing out a public meeting to demand answers from officials<\/a>.<\/p>\n In March, Wellington Water officials revealed trapped air bubbles were believed to be the likely cause<\/a> of the flooding, which led to the failure, after a hydraulic report found a design flaw in the facility.<\/p>\n Current estimates suggest work to repair the plant will cost $53.5 million<\/a>, but the facility is insured.<\/p>\n Included in that is $10.9m to improve the plant beyond its operational state before the incident, which is not covered by insurance, but could be paid for by council funding already provided to Wellington Water, officials said in May.<\/p>\n The Herald today revealed the plant has an overflow event hours before it catastrophically failed<\/a>, with crews forced to abandon the site due to a high flow alarm.<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe interim report will not be released at this time, following advice from the Crown Review Team that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":516902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[432,74,38864,17517,124,48803,273,28164,61101,1888,266,23500,21556,6712,170656,3234,111,139,69,1523,423,6046,3109,19764,13120,147,9095,42308,2846,8229,61,10510,15900,14443],"class_list":["post-516901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-action","tag-after","tag-answers","tag-because","tag-could","tag-disaster","tag-environment","tag-fears","tag-findings","tag-first","tag-government","tag-impact","tag-independent","tag-legal","tag-moa","tag-months","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-point","tag-potential","tag-public","tag-received","tag-remain","tag-science","tag-secret","tag-sewage","tag-them","tag-they","tag-to","tag-waiting","tag-wellingtons","tag-wont"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516901","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=516901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/516902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=516901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=516901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=516901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}