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Speaker 1: Go to Wellington. Now this is the long weekend that

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Speaker 1: you can't swim on the south coast. Don't go near it.

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Speaker 1: They wreckon equipment failure at male point the water treatment plant.

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Speaker 1: Not quite sure what caused it, but they say that

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Speaker 1: untreated wastewater is spewing into the ocean. Local city councilor

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Speaker 1: Sam O'Brien's with me, Now, Hey, Sam.

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Speaker 2: Come on, Ryan, thanks sending me on.

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Speaker 1: Any clarity on what happened yet.

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Speaker 2: At the stage it's still pretty unknown from my understanding.

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Speaker 2: We had some heavy rain and it appears like there's

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Speaker 2: been some sort of failure and it's led to wastewater

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Speaker 2: backing up one of the outful pipes and essentially flooding

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Speaker 2: the treatment planet itself.

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Speaker 1: Okay, and so can staff actually work in there, like,

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Speaker 1: can you fix it if the things flooded and start

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Speaker 1: had to evacuate.

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Speaker 2: Well, at the moment, I guess the process is to

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Speaker 2: pump out that wastewater that's gotten in and then you

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Speaker 2: can start going in and attempting to sort of assist

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Speaker 2: the damage in terms of the electrical stuff and things.

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Speaker 2: We don't really know what the scale of that damage

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Speaker 2: is at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Right, And When you say pump it out, where do

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Speaker 1: you pump it out too?

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure about that process, but I would assume

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Speaker 2: that it would be some sort of thing that gets

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Speaker 2: trucked away to somewhere that it can be dealt with.

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Speaker 1: How long do you do you expect this will go

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Speaker 1: on before people can go swimming again?

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Speaker 2: Well, I guess the first stage is getting pumps working again,

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Speaker 2: which will mean that the wastewater can be discharged to

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Speaker 2: the long outfall, which will make it safer, and that

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Speaker 2: could be done within three days or so they estimate,

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Speaker 2: but that may not make it safe enough to swim

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Speaker 2: for people. So the stage it's really unknown how long

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Speaker 2: it'll take to resolve it.

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Speaker 1: Is that to get it out to the pipe that

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Speaker 1: goes in two k's out to the ocean.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a columbar our antcook straight, which means that

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Speaker 2: it sort of yeah, can disperse further, not it's not.

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Speaker 2: The short outfall is essentially going straight into the bay.

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Speaker 1: Sam, are you happy with Wellington Water what they're doing their.

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Speaker 2: Response on the short term, I would say, you know,

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Speaker 2: you're doing their best to resolve a situation and we

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Speaker 2: don't know what's caused it. But over the long term.

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Speaker 2: Obviously it's an ongoing issue. This isn't an isolated thing,

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Speaker 2: and it's disappointing to see yet another example of our

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Speaker 2: water infrastructure failing in such a terrible way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a terrible way. Where's your what water

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Speaker 1: are you? And where do you live?

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Speaker 2: So I'm the multi cutting the eastern ward which includes

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Speaker 2: sort of Mirmarlisle Bay area, which is where the treatment

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Speaker 2: plan is.

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Speaker 1: Right, so you won't be going swimming anytime soon? What

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Speaker 1: ticket did you run on, Sam? I've not heard of

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Speaker 1: you before. This is all I'm just curious. Are you

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Speaker 1: are left to righty?

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Speaker 2: What are you? I'm a labor councilor okay?

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Speaker 1: And do you what where do you sit with the infrastructure?

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Speaker 1: You want to get this fixed as a priority number

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Speaker 1: one instead of the disco lose all that sort of stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you could sum it up like that. Obviously,

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Speaker 2: the management of water infrastructure is a big deal, and

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Speaker 2: we're moving to a new water entity and I'm pretty

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Speaker 2: keen to ensure that moving from Wellington Water to our

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Speaker 2: new entity doesn't just mean that we repeat exactly the

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Speaker 2: same mistakes we had with flying to water.

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Speaker 1: All right, Sam, How old are you?

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Speaker 2: I'm twenty five, okay, all right, I thought.

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Speaker 1: You sounded quite young. No good to know, good to know,

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Speaker 1: and we'll just get on and fix it, would you.

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Speaker 2: It's planned all right?

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Speaker 1: Cheer Sam, appreciate it. Sam O'Brien, Wellington Eastern Water Councilor for.

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Speaker 2: More from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news Talks. It'd be from five am weekdays,

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