A major milestone for Waipā District Council’s Waikeria wastewater pipeline project has been reached with the completion of the Waikeria to Kihikihi section last week.
The major infrastructure project which will bring Waikeria’s wastewater through to Te Awamutu for treatment to modern standards, began 12 months ago and will be the longest wastewater pressure pipeline in the Waipā network.
Council’s service delivery group manager, Dawn Inglis, said the Puniu bridge completion was a particularly proud moment.
“The Puniu Bridge pipeline was installed on the outside of the bridge overlooking the Puniu river, and required scaffolding and traffic management on State Highway 3 at times,” Inglis said.
“Our contractors did a phenomenal job to attach the pipeline carefully to the recently strengthened bridge which required a lot of skill. We are very pleased to have reached this milestone which marks the end of the 10km section between Waikeria and Kihikihi township.”
Further along the pipeline in Te Awamutu, the three 26m x 3m storage tanks placed in Albert Park in June, have now been covered, with six manholes being the only visible sign of the large infrastructure underneath.
Each tank is capable of holding 180,000L of wastewater and will be used as emergency storage in the event of power failures or other technical issues to give staff time to deploy resources without overflows from the pump station occuring.
Albert Park has also welcomed two shiny green ‘domes’ which use activated carbon technology to help manage any unpleasant odours.
“When the domes are operational, any passers-by shouldn’t be able to smell anything nasty – while not a 100% guarantee, it is expected that unpleasant odours will only be noticed when the carbon filter needs maintenance,” Inglis added.
The green domes are the first of its kind for the district and will also feature in Kihikihi at two locations along the new pipeline, which is being installed across the town.
The Waikeria project includes multiple upgrade works of existing facilities and new wastewater pipelines, starting at Waikeria Wastewater Pump Station and finishing at the Te Awamutu Wastewater Treatment Plant.
The multi-million dollar project which crosses two districts, largely funded by the Department of Corrections, will meet the capacity needs of Waipā district’s projected population growth and Waikeria’s prison upgrade.
For more information, please head to www.waipadc.govt.nz/waikeria.
