IIn a small city across the harbor from New Zealand's capital, an invisible villain is terrorizing the local population. It hangs thick and rotten, seeping through windows, staining laundry, and making people nauseous. The “stench”, as locals call it, is so unpleasant that people have to hold their breath and dash between cars and houses, stop eating outside and run home to escape. I'm considering selling it.
“It's like a long drop.” [toilet] There’s not good ventilation,” says Anthony Coomer, who lives and works in the area. “This is like the worst baby diaper you've ever smelled…and that's what it's like in your mouth.”
Residents and businesses in Lower Hutt have long been plagued by odors emanating from the Seaview Sewage Treatment Plant, located in a semi-industrial, semi-residential area along the north shore of Wellington Harbour. Most often it appears and disappears. Some days are exciting, others are not at all. But the smell has gotten stronger and more frequent in recent months after equipment failures and fires in the factory's dryer system.
Local authorities say they are working to minimize odors and reduce the risk of significant odors, but it could be several years before reliable new systems are installed.
Outside Mr. Coomer's workplace, a motorsports manufacturing company 300 meters from the factory, the smell is so strong that he can't escape it, even indoors.
“Remember that cartoon where the smell of green hits your nose?” Coomer asks. “At worst, you have to use your arm to cut the air in front of you.”
Mr Coomer is baffled by the odors his customers are experiencing, and there are risks to hosting people in his home, which is a kilometer away. “You're having a barbecue with your family and you hear a bang. You have to go inside and close all the doors. You can't taste the food. It's surreal. ”
Daniel Wills, who lives about a kilometer from the factory and is the founder of the Facebook community group Stop the Stench, said the smell was so strong that it “literally made me nauseous.” .
Depending on what's going on at the factory and the weather, the odors can occur several times a week or even every day, she says. When people from other areas are enjoying the hot days in their gardens or playing with their kids outside, Seaview locals are closing their doors and missing out on the opportunity.
“You're not enjoying where you live now,” Wills says. “My daily activities have changed. I can't cook outside. I can't cook with steam because I have to open the windows. I can't even dry my laundry.”
Mr Wills and Mr Coomer believe that despite local residents' outcry, local authorities responsible for the plant have been too slow to address the problem. “I got tired of chasing them,” Wills said. “It's only through continued pressure that they're doing something about it.”
Coomer says the council should focus on the basics. “And clean air and functioning plants should be fundamental.”
Jeremy McKibbin, group manager for Wellington Water, the council-owned water services company that manages the Seaview plant, said the aging plant was plagued by problems and breakdowns due to a history of poor maintenance.
“The dryer broke down twice in a row, but that corresponded with other maintenance updates,” he told the Guardian. Dryers are responsible for removing waste after treatment, but their deficiencies have resulted in the accumulation of mostly human waste.
“It smells awful. I really feel for the residents there…We're doing everything we can to rectify a really bad situation.”
He says staff are working to remove as much of the accumulated sludge as possible, and the $13 million in funding will go toward improved odor treatment.
Meanwhile, they are working on modifications to their current dryers, but reliable replacements (custom-made and costing $90 million) could take up to four years to install in a worst-case scenario.
McKibbin said that doesn't mean local residents will have to endure current levels of odors for four years, but there is a risk of further breakdowns and worsening odors until new systems are installed.
Lower Hutt Mayor Campbell Barry says water infrastructure across the Wellington region has long suffered from decades of underinvestment.
While there was no “silver bullet or quick fix” to the plant's problems, Barry said day-to-day operators are doing everything they can to mitigate potential odors.
Seaview's predicament has been likened to the stench that hit the suburbs of Christchurch in 2022 due to problems with a municipal composting plant. Mr Barry said the circumstances back then were very different and there were 24/7 issues, but he was open to exploring what Christchurch City Council had done to support residents and businesses. This included a one-time payment for air purifiers.
Barry said there are “quite a few” people who live and work in the neighborhood who are affected when the odor is bad. “It's unacceptable and it's not something people should have to endure. That's why it's a top priority for us.”
