Prosecutions may be coming from Moa Point failure - but public won't know until at least December

Prosecutions may be handed out over the Moa Point failure, but the public won't know until at least December - nine months after the failure occurred.

A local MP says now is the time to dump the company Veolia which had been operating the plant at the time, but the new water entity boss says it will remain while its contract is in place.

Outgoing Wellington Water chief executive Pat Dougherty told a water committee meeting recently that staff were "engaging with the regional council about potential prosecutions" over Moa Point.

Greater Wellington Regional Council is investigating the failure for possible breaches of the Resource Management Act.

This is separate to an Independent Crown Review into the failure - with an interim report due on the minister's desk any day now.

The council won't provide specific detail on the progress of its investigation to RNZ, the penalties likely, or which parties are in the firing line.

"A forensic investigation of this magnitude is a lengthy process which we to aim to complete in December 2026," its acting director of strategy, policy and regulation, Shaun Andrewartha, said.

Rongotai MP Julie-Anne Genter said that was a "really long time" for the community to wait for answers.

"I think people would like to see firstly an outcome - that we stop discharging untreated sewage into the south coast, that we get the wastewater treatment plant up and running again, and that also people are held to account."

Genter pointed to Veolia - the multinational company which operates Moa Point and Wellington's three other wastewater treatment plants - and said it needed to be held accountable if found at fault.

Since 2021, the company has been slapped with 54 infringement fines from the regional council over issues with the plants.

In 2025, Dougherty pointed to "significant and repeated" breaches of the Resource Management Act at the plants Veolia was operating, saying every breach "amounted to a potential criminal offence".

Genter said she thought the operation of the plants should be brought in-house now Tiaki Wai had taken over, and Veolia should no longer be used.

"I think the fact it's multiple different organisations makes it harder to assess accountability, and to have that transparency when there's a failure.

"We get the private operator and the councils all pointing the finger at each other, and trying to shift blame, and really this is public infrastructure, it's funded by public money, it's for public good - this I think is a case for having a simpler structure."

But Tiaki Wai boss Michael Brewster said it was inheriting a contract with Veolia which would be in place until June 2030.

"You can't just break contracts if you want to, without consequences, which would flow on to the customers - it's also poor business practice."

Brewster said he would be reviewing Veolia's performance in due course.

"We will be sitting down with them and looking at performance, as we do with all major contracts - whether we are getting value for money out of them, whether they can do a better job."

Moa Point 'very likely' to have 24-hour staffing

Brewster also said in a letter to Genter it would be "very likely" the Moa Point plant would be permanently staffed 24 hours a day after the failure.

No staff were on-site in the early hours of 4 February when a downpour and a design-flaw caused an air bubble in the wastewater bypass pipe, causing a back-up in the system.

The plant at the time was being remotely monitored, which Wellington Water said was usual. It has since increased to round-the-clock staffing after the disaster occurred.

Auckland's Watercare said it staffs its major wastewater treatment plants at Māngere and Rosedale 24 hours a day, due to their scale, and risk of critical negative effects in the event of a failure.

Genter said given the costly disaster that occurred, 24 hour staffing was necessary.

"I think people rightly would expect 24-hour staffing, especially given that when things have gone wrong, the consequences have been very, very significant."

Brewster told RNZ there would be an assessment of the plant's staffing requirement later this year, but Tiaki Wai would not be taking the risk of a repeat disaster.

"My concern is we can't have this happen again."

Veolia declined to comment, referring to an earlier statement where it said it was concerned about the Moa Point failure and was committed to preventing recurrences.