EJECTOR STATION BREAKDOWN

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 127, 22 February 1939, Page 5

EJECTOR STATION BREAKDOWN

Sewage Turned Into Harbour Trouble was experienced in Wellington earlv yesterday morning from a breakdown -on the principal pumping main carrying sewage from the city area. The breakdown occurred at the junction of .Victoria Street and Willeston Street at one of the city ejector stations. Considerable difficulty was experienced in clearing the flooded ejector chamber, and it/vas necessary for some time to jwnip the sewage into the street channel. The breakdown was found to be due to the defective condition of a portion of the ejector .equipment itself, the metal—east iron—having been eaten away by corrosion. Arrangements were made immediately to bypass the city sewage through ti:c stormwater drains into the liarboui, and it is hoped to have the system in normal operation again this morning. This particular ejector station has been in use for 40 years, so that it is not the least surprising to the city officials that it should break down. For years past it has been known tnat the old rising main .had long outlived its period of sttfe service. It was for that reason that two years ago the city engineer put before the city council' plans for a supplementary rising main which would give relief to the old one and ultimately .supplant it, a work now well forward.

Trouble was also experienced recently at the main pumping station at Clyde Quay because of the failure of two of the old pumping units which had been doing duty for some 50 years. The city engineer stated, however, that this caused no inconvenience as it. was possible to take the load with the new electrically-driven machinery wltieli has recently been installed.