Auckland City Council

Orakei Basin Dredging Programme

Extra funding for an extended dredging trial at Orakei Basin is recommended by the council’s City Works Committee, pending a "peer review" of the programme.

The committee will recommend that the Finance and Property Committee approve spending a total of $882,000 to trial both land-based and water-based dredging machinery, removing around 3,500 cubic metres of sludge from the basin floor.

Dredging works will start in February, when Murray Menzies, who has also reviewed the Ellerslie Waiatarua catchment programme, presents his report. So the work won’t be delayed, a sub-committee of Cr John Ohlsen, committee chairman Cr Doug Astley and council director Bob Wakelin is delegated to discuss the trial in the light of the report, and see that it proceeds once satisfied that all issues have been addressed.

City Works Committee chairman Cr Doug Astley says people who live close to the basin and will be subjected to the smells of the basin shouldn’t have to put up with it any longer than necessary.

"The dredging programme will remove the black organic material which has built up in the basin over the years. The trial will show us which is the best and least disruptive means of dredging this area, from the point of view of the works. It will also identify the most effective means of removing the largest amount of sludge for our dollars."

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