Watercare\u2019s 16.2km Central Interceptor tunnel runs from Point Erin in Herne Bay to the M\u0101ngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.<\/p>\n
Together with its link sewers in Mt Roskill, Blockhouse Bay and Mt Albert, it captures and transfers wastewater and stormwater flows that would otherwise contribute to wet-weather overflows.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s 4.5m-high, as high as a giraffe and that does create a lot of storage,\u201d Sinclair told media.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019re able to manage the wastewater network in a different way, able to store more stormwater and wastewater as it\u2019s combined. So we should be able to manage those flows a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Wayne Brown said it\u2019s an example of Auckland making its own decisions and paying for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really important and it shows that we as a city can maturely make decisions and pay for things and do it ourselves, and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done in this one,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a government project. This is a council and city project. And I think that Watercare have done a very good job of that and we should be thankful for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The southern half of the tunnel went live early last year, with Watercare estimating it\u2019s already prevented 741,000cu mof wastewater and stormwater from overflowing.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the equivalent of almost 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools.<\/p>\n
With the northern section now in service, the full tunnel is operational.<\/p>\n
Brown says its completionis a significant achievement that will benefit Aucklanders by reducing wet-weather overflows and helping to improve the health of our harbours and local streams.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hoped fewer beaches will have black flags this summer and the water will be healthier in general.<\/p>\n
The project was delivered on time – and slightly over budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a couple of scope additions, so it was the original central interceptor was meant to end in Mount Albert. It was extended to Grey Lynn, and then further extended to Point Erin to maximise the benefits,\u201d Sinclair said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we added up those scope extensions, the budget was $1.5 billion, and we ended up at $1.66b.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s despite massive challenges including major weather events, a pandemic and inflation.<\/p>\n
More than 4300 people have worked on the project.<\/p>\n
So what\u2019s next for those workers and the city?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely want an [infrastructure] pipeline because Watercare\u2019s got a huge programme ahead of it, and we want to make sure that we\u2019ve, you know, got the workforce available. We\u2019re looking forward to announcing in due course those big programmes and keeping that pipeline alive so we can build that capacity into the market.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to keep people employed, we want to keep the contractors in, in market and the right equipment as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katie Bradford is a Senior Correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for over 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watercare\u2019s 16.2km Central Interceptor tunnel runs from Point Erin in Herne Bay to the M\u0101ngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[41813,9526,51,3952,8613,3052,6559,13419,111,139,69,59966,2680,34091,14738,213,61,78597,29387],"class_list":["post-534450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-41813","tag-another","tag-auckland","tag-aucklands","tag-billion","tag-faced","tag-heavy","tag-june","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-officially","tag-opens","tag-rainfall","tag-solution","tag-sports","tag-to","tag-wastewater","tag-woes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534450","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=534450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}