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Testing begins ahead of sewage pump station’s major upgrade

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PUBLISHED: 15 JAN 2026
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NPDC is taking steps to protect Bell Block’s Mangati Stream by upgrading a sewage pump station on the adjacent walkway.

The pump station has a history of overflows whenever the station has stopped working, for instance during a power cut or during wet weather events.

To reduce the likelihood of overflows occurring in the future, large underground emergency storage will be installed beneath Mangati Walkway’s path.

“The first stage of the project is ground-testing – finding out how much water is in the soil and installing monitoring equipment in bore holes,” says NPDC Project Delivery Manager Sean Cressy.

“The information we gather will help us design emergency storage that is suitable for the environment.”

Drilling the bore holes starts 19 January. Silt control bags and fences will capture any sediment to prevent it entering Mangati Stream.

Pedestrians will be able to walk past the worksite with care during the three-week work.

Stage two, the installation of underground storage, will take place in 2026/27.

This project is part of NPDC’s $289m investment over 10 years to 2031 to fix the district’s plumbing.

At a glance:

  • NPDC looks after 34 pump stations, more than 7,000 manholes and nearly 700km of pipes in the district’s wastewater network.
  • Raw sewage and trade waste collected from Waitara, Bell Block, New Plymouth, Inglewood and Ōākura is treated at the New Plymouth Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is turned into clean effluent (discharged via an ocean outfall) and the slow-release fertiliser Bioboost.

 

Caption: The Mangati Walkway will remain open while ground-testing takes place at the pump station.

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Page last updated: 09:44am Thu 15 January 2026

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