4 Feb 2026

Millions of litres of sewage leaking into Wellington beaches

From Checkpoint, 5:08 pm on 4 February 2026

Some Wellington beaches are off limits with massive amounts of raw sewage being pumped out to sea after a treatment plant was swamped in contaminated water, during heavy rain. It could take months to repair the damage at the Moa Point treatment plant. During heavy rain last night water backed up in the outfall pipe and flooded the site in metres deep raw sewage. Wellington Water chief executive Pat Dougherty spoke to Lisa Owen.