A crisis in the capital: ‘Toilet water brushing up against historic sites’

2026-02-11 - 16:08

Ray Ahipene-Mercer keeps a jar of 24-year-old water in his refrigerator, labelled ‘Moa Point Final Effluent’. “It looks like a glass of water, hasn’t got a single bug in it, no discolouration, nothing,” he says. It is a memento of the new sewage plant which he battled over for years as the co-leader of the Wellington Clean Water Campaign. But nearly 30 years after that successful campaign to stop the dumping of raw sewage in the sea, it is happening again. Since last Wednesday, more than 600 million litres of untreated sewage have poured into the water off the south coast after a catastrophic failure of Moa Point, the city’s main treatment plant. On a sparkling summer day Ahipene-Mercer looks out from his Breaker Bay home just around the corner from the plant and the bays are empty. “I’m looking at the water about 50 metres away, it’s beautiful and yet underneath it there is this darkness. There is not a person walking the dog, having a walk, swimming, surfing, nothing,” he tells The Detail. The former city councillor is angry, not just about the health risks to humans, but the damage to the environment and risks to the kororā, and to historic Māori sites. Ray Ahipene-Mercer with his jar of 24-year-old water from Moa Point sewage treatment plant. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly “Toilet water is now brushing up against historic sites at Tarakina Bay. One of the reasons this campaign in the 80s was so successful, we married Māori concerns and Pākehā concerns together and that’s why we won that campaign,” Ahipene-Mercer says. “I’m very angry, because of all this work we did. It’s not in vain however because Wellingtonians have responded magnificently.” The plant failed early last Wednesday morning during a bout of heavy rain. With the threat of more bad weather this weekend, there are fears the situation could get worse.