Erosion on the cliff face at Taita Rock has been monitored over the past 15 years. Monitoring showing that it is slow erosion, the cycle path, and State Highway 2 – not big floods which threatened the sewerage pipe.

With the cliff having eroded to within about two meters of the pipe and only a few meters from the edge of State Highway Two, Wellington Water chief operating officer Charles Barker says that they’ve reached a threshold where they don’t want the erosion to come any nearer. The danger to the pipe is increasing, but it isn’t imminent, at least over the next year – He says that the public “wouldn’t expect us to get to a point where there’s actually an imminent risk that the pipe is hanging by a thread before we took some action”.

Engineers were looking at how to protect pipe in the short term with options such as mesh, or a short retaining wall at the top of the cliff, while a long-term solution was sought.

Upper Hutt City Council and Hutt City Council are paying the two million dollars for the project. Hutt City Council have said about $300,000 has been spent so far looking at short and medium term options. Upper Hutt City Council did not answer a question on exactly how much it would put in now or in the future, but said it’s agreement with Lower Hutt was to cover about 30% of the costs of maintaining trunk sewer mains.

Upper Hutt City Council chief executive Geoff Swainson said in a statement “Collectively both councils work together to understand in advance what costs an annual basis will be but pragmatically have to reprioritise when the unexpected happens.”

Source: Radio New Zealand

26/01/26