Watercare Confirms Second Financial Support Payment Of $1 Million To Mahurangi Oyster Farmers

Watercare has confirmed that a second financial support payment of $1 million was made yesterday to Mahurangi oyster farmers affected by the late-October wastewater overflow in the Mahurangi River.

The payment follows an initial $1 million payment made in November to provide immediate financial support while the full impact of the incident continues to be independently assessed.

The independent loss assessment is still being completed, with further analysis required before the assessor can finalise conclusions. Watercare will then be in a position to confirm any final payments across affected farms based on an accurate loss assessment analysis.

Watercare Chief Operations Officer Mark Bourne said the second payment reflects Watercare’s commitment to providing support while the independent assessment is completed.

“This incident should not have happened,” says Bourne.

“It arose from a unique chain of events, including a power outage compounded by failures in alerting and monitoring systems not operating as intended.

“This second payment is intended to provide further support while the independent loss assessor completes a farm-by-farm assessment of losses directly linked to the October event.”

An independent loss assessor with aquaculture expertise was appointed to assess losses on an individual farm basis, recognising that impacts vary depending on harvest cycles, business size, and cost structures.

Further information on the incident, the assessment process, and next steps is available in the accompanying public explainer.

Actions taken

Since the incident, Watercare has taken a number of steps to support affected farmers and to reduce the likelihood of a similar event occurring again. These include:

• Making a total of $2 million in payments while the independent loss assessment process is completed
• Appointing an independent loss assessor with aquaculture expertise to determine final loss amounts as quickly and fairly as possible
• Commissioning two independent investigations into the cause of the incident to ensure appropriate mechanical and process-related improvements are carried out.

Background information:

Warkworth Street Pump Station overflow: What we are doing and why

What happened

In late October, an overflow from a Watercare pump station released wastewater into the Mahurangi River. This incident should not have happened. It resulted from a unique chain of events, including a power outage combined with failures in alerting and monitoring systems.

The overflow directly affected Mahurangi oyster farms, forcing a temporary harvest closure during peak season and causing significant disruption to these businesses.

What Watercare has already done

Immediate hardship support
In November, Watercare made an initial $1 million financial support payment to affected oyster farmers to provide immediate financial relief while impacts were assessed.

Independent loss assessment
An independent loss assessor with aquaculture expertise was appointed to assess losses on a per-farm basis, recognising that impacts vary significantly between businesses.

Operational response
Watercare has reviewed the incident, addressed system issues, and is implementing improvements to reduce the risk of recurrence.

What is happening now
Watercare is making a second financial support payment of $1 million to further support affected farmers.

What this second payment does — and does not — cover

It covers
Support towards losses directly caused by the late-October overflow event.

It does not cover
Historic losses, losses related to wet-weather discharges and other historic consented overflows, or unrelated operational issues. These matters are governed separately under environmental consents and regulatory frameworks.

What happens next

• Farmers will be contacted individually and confidentially to discuss outcomes once the loss assessor’s work is finalised.
• Watercare will continue to communicate openly about progress and learnings from this incident.

About Watercare:

• Every day, we supply about 440 million litres of safe drinking water to 1.7 million people in Auckland. We also collect and treat their wastewater.
• Over the next 10 years, we will carry out more than 1000 projects to improve and expand our water and wastewater infrastructure – investing an average of $3.8 million every day ($13.8 billion in total).
• Our infrastructure investment programme will help to keep our precious environment healthy by reducing the frequency of wastewater overflows onto land and into waterways.

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