Two become one. Awatea Place Pump Station finished
13/10/2023 1:10pm
Increased wastewater capacity and resilience in Tāhunanui has been realised now that work is complete on the new Awatea Place pump station.
In October 2021, an extensive project to replace the two wastewater pump stations on Parkers Road commenced.
The two pump stations were aged, under capacity and no longer fit for purpose, says Group Manager Infrastructure Alec Louverdis.
“The old pump stations were close to housing with no space to be upgraded to handle our city’s future demand. The solution was a new pumpstation that can handle increased wastewater flows.”
The new pump station will assist in preventing future sewer overflows, cater for future development and minimise the impact of wet weather events.
The upgrade has increased overall catchment flow capacity by 51% and now provides full 100% standby pumping capacity in case of a pump failure.
This upgrade complements the new storage tanks at Awatea Place and Beach Road provide much greater capacity in the network (total 622m3) to avoid dry weather overflows and also allow some peak flow buffering to minimise wet weather overflows.
The project faced many challenges over the last two years, which had put back the expected completion date. “All projects present different challenges, but this project had challenges in spades,” says Louverdis.
“We were significantly impacted by COVID-19 through overseas shipping delays in relation to key equipment that required extensive replanning of programming and methodology and through Covid 19 related illness. Rainfall events specifically the August 2022 severe weather event further extended the expected timeframe.”
The original programme completion date was September 2022.
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A pizza party was held to thank residents for their patience and to show them around the pump station. |
“This was an incredibly complex project and the residents of the area have been so understanding and patient. From the beginning of the project, they understood the importance of this key piece of infrastructure work for Tāhunanui,” says Nelson Mayor Nick Smith.
“I was so proud to hear from contractors that interactions with the residents were positive and friendly. My thanks to all residents and contractors for the huge amount of work and time that was required to complete this project.”
