October 31, 2025 • 5 mins
A pump station overflow north of Auckland has resulted in the temporary closure of Oyster farms and the destruction of thousands of contaminated oysters.
In an email sent on Thursday, Watercare said the pump station overflowed at about 2.30pm to the stormwater pond and wastewater began entering the Mahurangi River but the overflow was not stopped until 8am the next day.
Chair of the Mahurangi Oyster Farms Association, Lynette Dunn, said to Andrew Dickens that this was far from the first time this type of incident had occurred.
"I think by recording, we might be up to about 38 or 39 times for the whole year," she said.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oyster farmers north of Auckland are having to temporarily close
their farms and destroy thousands of oysters because of a
colossal stuff up by water Care. If I do say
so myself. A pump station overflowed earlier this week. It
dubbed twelve hundred cubic meters of sewage into the Maharangi
River and water Care's internal alert system failed. Apparently there
was a power power problem, so the fault wasn't discovered
(00:22):
until eight a m. Yesterday. So all the skunk has
been flowing into the ocean and flowing into oyster beds.
And Anette done this chair of the Maharangy Oyster Farmers
Association and joins me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Now, hello than that, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm good? How bad was the spill?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Pretty bad when you equivalent to like two hundred thousand
toilet slashes and one hundred and thirty concrete trucks.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh, that's an image I didn't need to hear.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh it puts it in perpective for your listeners.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Of course it does. And how much actual damage was
done to the oyster farms or was the damage all
just done to the creatures into the water that they
have been poisoned.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Basically, the damage has been done to the water partment
because we can't harvest for twenty eight days because of
the threw to overflow and the farmers will have to
relocate their product to another harbor to filtrate out for
a twenty eight day period, and the costs that's involved
in doing that is huge for the farmers because you
(01:25):
know when you harvest an oyster, you pick up the oyster,
your grad and you send it out to the shops.
This is where you have to pick up grade, take
it up normals or take it to another harbor, relocate it,
wait for another twenty eight days and hopefully with extensive
testing through Ministry Primary industries, we can harvest our product again.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So that's twenty eight days where you can't sell a noise,
so you can't make money. You don't have any cash flow.
Plus you've got expenses because you've got to up and
move them to another place. Who's paying for this or now?
The question is more as water Care compensating anyone.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We got a little bit of compensation a few months
ago when they did one little spill, but basically it
didn't cover one week's worth of bills at all, to
tell you the truth, So nothing from water Care, nothing
from anyone, and all the farmers finding it very difficult
(02:21):
to even keep their heads above water at the moment.
So it's not an ideal situation when we've only probably
had a couple of months have been open. Next week,
we've got some amazing tides to be able to go
out and with our farms, and we can't do that now.
You know, in.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Harvest you said there was another one. I mean, how
many times has this sort of thing happened?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I think by recording we might be up to about
thirty eight or thirty nine times for the whole year.
Good lord, it's just so wrong in every way.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Thirty eight or thirty nine times a mistake by water
Care has has infected an entire industry. Thirty eight or
thirty nine times in a year.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah. They changed the legislation in twenty twenty two from
two spills a year to two hundred, so they think
they can just keep on dumping third into the harbor
two hundred times throughout the year without any notification to
any of them, with the farmers about the change of
the legislation they're put in place.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So when I said, ye know, it was a stuff
up caused by a power cut or some power problem,
because the alerts didn't go off. In fact, because they've
got rights under the legislation, under the regulations that they
operate on, it's actually a regular occurrence as part of
their process. Is polluting your product.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It sure is. And the upgrade that they've donated Lucy
Moore Parks only like a couple of weeks old, and
you would have thought they might have had a backup
system or a generator that would pick up on our overflow.
When we got notorbyed fired about the spill, or was
three fourteen in the afternoon. They were at the site
at eight o'clock in the morning and we didn't get
(04:03):
notified notification until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then
Ministry our Primary Industries notified us at three twenty five,
putting implementing a twenty eight day closure straight on to us.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Is there any legal route you could pursue to get
water care to make some sort of restitution to help
your belieged farmers.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's something for the farmers to discuss. But we're hoping
that water queue will come to the party.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But it's just wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's shocking and many people haven't heard this story. And
the text machines melting down, it's just wrong because your
industry is being ruined by somebody else's practices and stuff
up and they're getting away with it.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, and when they send leads out to house owners
and wanting to come and afect accept your septic tank
and making sure you're not overflying down into a stream,
or they pursue a farmer because the cow turns the
wrong way and faces the string. They find them, but
they can just see what they want, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, look, my greatest sympathy to your farmers and to
you and thank you for your time today. That is
Lynette Done, who is chair of the Mahurangi Oyster Farmers Association.
The text of melting Down, Okay, that's byes says someone
water Care need to fit this bill entirely. Absolutely. Another
texta says, imagine if a dairy farmer did this, they
would be crucified. That is a disgrace. Watercare should remedy
(05:28):
all the oyster farmers. Thank you Mike for your text.
The thing that got me is that this is part
of their normal practice. They flush it out. They flush
it out into the river, and then it goes out
into the harbor thirty eight or thirty nine times in
one year.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Oyster farmers north of Auckland are having to temporarily close
their farms and destroy thousands of oysters because of a
colossal stuff up by water Care. If I do say
so myself. A pump station overflowed earlier this week. It
dubbed twelve hundred cubic meters of sewage into the Maharangi
River and water Care's internal alert system failed. Apparently there
was a power power problem, so the fault wasn't discovered
(00:22):
until eight a m. Yesterday. So all the skunk has
been flowing into the ocean and flowing into oyster beds.
And Anette done this chair of the Maharangy Oyster Farmers
Association and joins me.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Now, hello than that, Hi, how are you?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm good? How bad was the spill?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Pretty bad when you equivalent to like two hundred thousand
toilet slashes and one hundred and thirty concrete trucks.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Oh, that's an image I didn't need to hear.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh it puts it in perpective for your listeners.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Of course it does. And how much actual damage was
done to the oyster farms or was the damage all
just done to the creatures into the water that they
have been poisoned.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Basically, the damage has been done to the water partment
because we can't harvest for twenty eight days because of
the threw to overflow and the farmers will have to
relocate their product to another harbor to filtrate out for
a twenty eight day period, and the costs that's involved
in doing that is huge for the farmers because you
(01:25):
know when you harvest an oyster, you pick up the oyster,
your grad and you send it out to the shops.
This is where you have to pick up grade, take
it up normals or take it to another harbor, relocate it,
wait for another twenty eight days and hopefully with extensive
testing through Ministry Primary industries, we can harvest our product again.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So that's twenty eight days where you can't sell a noise,
so you can't make money. You don't have any cash flow.
Plus you've got expenses because you've got to up and
move them to another place. Who's paying for this or now?
The question is more as water Care compensating anyone.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
We got a little bit of compensation a few months
ago when they did one little spill, but basically it
didn't cover one week's worth of bills at all, to
tell you the truth, So nothing from water Care, nothing
from anyone, and all the farmers finding it very difficult
(02:21):
to even keep their heads above water at the moment.
So it's not an ideal situation when we've only probably
had a couple of months have been open. Next week,
we've got some amazing tides to be able to go
out and with our farms, and we can't do that now.
You know, in.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Harvest you said there was another one. I mean, how
many times has this sort of thing happened?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
I think by recording we might be up to about
thirty eight or thirty nine times for the whole year.
Good lord, it's just so wrong in every way.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Thirty eight or thirty nine times a mistake by water
Care has has infected an entire industry. Thirty eight or
thirty nine times in a year.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah. They changed the legislation in twenty twenty two from
two spills a year to two hundred, so they think
they can just keep on dumping third into the harbor
two hundred times throughout the year without any notification to
any of them, with the farmers about the change of
the legislation they're put in place.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So when I said, ye know, it was a stuff
up caused by a power cut or some power problem,
because the alerts didn't go off. In fact, because they've
got rights under the legislation, under the regulations that they
operate on, it's actually a regular occurrence as part of
their process. Is polluting your product.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
It sure is. And the upgrade that they've donated Lucy
Moore Parks only like a couple of weeks old, and
you would have thought they might have had a backup
system or a generator that would pick up on our overflow.
When we got notorbyed fired about the spill, or was
three fourteen in the afternoon. They were at the site
at eight o'clock in the morning and we didn't get
(04:03):
notified notification until three o'clock in the afternoon, and then
Ministry our Primary Industries notified us at three twenty five,
putting implementing a twenty eight day closure straight on to us.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Is there any legal route you could pursue to get
water care to make some sort of restitution to help
your belieged farmers.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
That's something for the farmers to discuss. But we're hoping
that water queue will come to the party.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
But it's just wrong.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
It's shocking and many people haven't heard this story. And
the text machines melting down, it's just wrong because your
industry is being ruined by somebody else's practices and stuff
up and they're getting away with it.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah, and when they send leads out to house owners
and wanting to come and afect accept your septic tank
and making sure you're not overflying down into a stream,
or they pursue a farmer because the cow turns the
wrong way and faces the string. They find them, but
they can just see what they want, all right.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Well, look, my greatest sympathy to your farmers and to
you and thank you for your time today. That is
Lynette Done, who is chair of the Mahurangi Oyster Farmers Association.
The text of melting Down, Okay, that's byes says someone
water Care need to fit this bill entirely. Absolutely. Another
texta says, imagine if a dairy farmer did this, they
would be crucified. That is a disgrace. Watercare should remedy
(05:28):
all the oyster farmers. Thank you Mike for your text.
The thing that got me is that this is part
of their normal practice. They flush it out. They flush
it out into the river, and then it goes out
into the harbor thirty eight or thirty nine times in
one year.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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