A top water engineer says the failure of the Moa Pt wastewater plant in Wellington is 'guaranteed' to happen again elsewhere because of a lack of skilled water operators in this country.
Millions of litres of untreated wastewater has discharged into the south coast of Wellington in the last couple of weeks after a 'catastrophic failure' at the Moa Point plant on February 4.
The Government is carrying out an independent review into the failure - with ownership of the plant set to change hands from Wellington City Council to the new water organisation Tiaki Wai.
Former Wellington City councillor Tim Brown is deeply concerned about the governance of the coming water entity Tiaki Wai.
He says board appointments to the water services company have been too political, and lacking in infrastructure expertise.
Water engineer Iain Rabbitts has been working in the industry for 35 years and says he can guarantee part of the failure at Moa Point will come down to the lack of skilled wastewater operators.
Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
