Watercare staff and crews on site will be continuing to work around the clock this weekend and have made steady progress on solutions to the Ōrākei main sewer blockage.

Watercare chief operations officer Mark Bourne says: “Our crews managed to remove double the amount of material yesterday than they did the previous day which is great news. They’ve been hard at work on hydro-excavation, which is essentially jetting water into the blocked section and sucking loose material out with a vacuum sucker truck. Hydro-excavation will continue over the weekend.

“At the sinkhole site, yesterday we completed excavation around the top of the hole to make it safe. Today the team has been spraying a concrete-like product on the slope of the hole which helps to prevent more material from falling in.

“We’ve also managed to source the pipe for the overland bypass solution that we’ll be building next week to transfer wastewater between the manholes either side of the blockage.

“We have sourced some of this pipe from one of our existing projects, and the rest is being manufactured this weekend by a company in Whanganui that’s working hard to support Tāmaki Makaurau at this challenging time.

“We’re also making progress on route planning and expect to start building the pipe early next week.

“This bypass solution is a massive undertaking, and the target we’ve put in place – 10 days time – is certainly ambitious. But we’ll be doing everything humanly possible to meet this target.

“Our beautiful Waitematā Harbour is a taonga and – like everyone else in Auckland – we are saddened by this unfortunate event. Please be assured we have hundreds of people – staff, contractors, suppliers and supporters – doing everything in their power to put an end to the overflows as soon as possible.”

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