Parnell Poo Pipe

[waikiore 399]

The worst flow is out the end of Beaumont street, not off Parnell or the Orakei sewer so Devonport outwards should be fine and it will have had three days of tides by then 

[waikiore 399]

And the tide is coming in till midday at Okahu Bay that day , so as long as nothing has stuck to your appendages will should be sailing in good water....

[CarpeDiem 430]

37 minutes ago, ex Elly said:

Apparently no Squadron races this week or next.

Will the Coastal Classic still go ahead?

 

RAYC have moved their start this weekend. No reason why CC couldn't do the same if they needed to.

There's significantly less chance of a mob or of gear going overboard while just transiting through the zone...

[Steve 34]

Might save a gybe around North Head.  Often a great watch.

[K4309 263]

1 hour ago, alibaba said:

Contradict me if I am wrong, but I remember reading a long time ago, that the survival time of viruses etc in seawater was quite  short. By the time it has been diluted by the tidal flow? I certainly would not swim in the area around there, but cancelling yacht races is surely an overreaction.

Yes, the survival time for enteric pathogens outside of the body is rather short. Minutes and hours.

That, and the conditions for growth are completely wrong. E.coli is used as a proxy test because it is very easy to test for and is a reasonable (although not perfect) indicator of the likelihood of enteric pathogens being present. E coli's optimum growth temp is 37 degrees (i.e. body temp). Most enteric pathogens need body temp to grow and or survive.

Currently the water temp is low, but warming. In the main bodies of water probably around 14 deg or 15 deg. At the beaches and in shallow water I've seen it as high as 16 deg recently (end of a sunny day, tide rising over shallow mudflats kind of thing. So it is unlikely there is particularly massive growth of enteric pathogens. The current water temp verse the temp required for enteric pathogens to grow is why I asked previously if there was any actual monitoring results. If the inner harbour was at 25 deg at the height of summer the risk profile would likely be very different to right now with comparatively low water temp.

The main issue is the nutrients from the wastewater. All your kitchen scraps, shower water and soaps and detergents etc. All the nutrients means 'regular' marine bacteria can go nuts. In broad terms you would call this spoilage bacteria (i.e. when you leave left overs in the fridge too long). Examples are the pseudomonas species (green slime on left overs). Not a pathogen and wont make you sick buy itself, but if you ingest loads of it, its going to give you a crook gut. Non pathogenic species of E coli are also likely to thrive with high nutrient loads into the harbour. These are the species that are associated with the breakdown of organic matter (leaves, grass clippings, dead rats etc) but are different to the classic and dangerous pathogenic E coli such as H5N1 and the like.

The associated issue with regular bacteria going nuts on the nutrients is the reduction of dissolved oxygen. If you consume all the dissolved oxygen in water, everything else dies. Like when you turn the aerator off on the kids fish tank. Given the harbour flushing twice a day with tides, you'd need a major organic load to get this to happen. Several factors more than the wastewater overflow. That, and the way to get oxygen back into water is through splashing / wave action. We have fairly consistent SW / W winds, often not far off gales at the moment (spring equinox). That will be re-aerating the water nicely.

Given the harbour is flushed twice a day with tides with volumes several hundreds of times greater than the wastewater overflows, I would have thought banning yacht racing is an over reaction.

[Psyche 634]

Quote

Current advice is that wastewater will continue to be discharged into the Harbour until 17 October and it will take approximately 3 days after that to assess the water quality as safe.  We are concerned for the health risks to sailors and volunteers in the event that they come into contact with contaminated water.  Our decision follows and respects the advice of Watercare, Yachting New Zealand and the Ngati Whatua Orakei Rahui.

 

[K4309 263]

32 minutes ago, Psyche said:

 

I read something yesterday that people need to wait 28 days after the overflows are fixed. But I think that was in the context of food gathering / fishing. It was a notable change to the 3 days. My main point on the banning yachting is that the actual risk of coming into contact with the water does not appear to have been assessed anywhere. Obviously this is beyond the ability of a yacht club, or YNZ, but should be happening via Council (what would have been a Regional Council function). Transiting the water is given as safe. Ferries and other boats. It's not clear why yacht racing is out but transiting the harbour is in.

Have you Westhaven racer types thought of taking up golf?

[waikiore 399]

No but motor racing is becoming more attractive as the apartments creep down to the water at Westhaven and Panuku raises prices again and again

[Psyche 634]

The feedback is that people are sort of annoyed but not really. Its a chance to have a break between series, do some work, think about Labour Weekend etc. Once upon a time opening day was literally opening day when boats that had been on the hard all winter were on the water for the first race of the season. Now the season doesnt stop, clubs are competing for fewer boats and as soon as one series ends another begins which is fine but crews get tired, some have other interests etc. The short answer is that its not a big deal, its only a for a few weeks and besides we can go cruising if desired.

[Adrianp 120]

We at the NZ Multihull Yacht Club are monitoring the situation and are planning for an alternative start line near Narrow Neck if needed, but the PIC Coastal Classic will be going ahead on the 20th of October.

 

[K4309 263]

I just wanted to say a big Thank You to all of you Westhaven Racers that would normally do the Wednesday night series. I went down to Westhaven tonight and I had a wide choice of carparks. The parking has never been easier.

PS, thought the water looked cleaner than normal. Certainly no visual or olfactory evidence of any issues. 

[harrytom 646]

2 hours ago, K4309 said:

thought the water looked cleaner than normal. Certainly no visual or olfactory evidence of any issues. 

Funy you say that. That was our thought last weekend last weekend down the bottom end.

[Zozza 293]

I work down near Quay St a few times. per week and get a good waft of the Parnell Poo Pipe throughout the day. The smell is shocking.  What the hell have the rich pr#cks in Parnell been eating lately? Whatever it is, it is enough to bring tears to one's eye's let me tell yuh!

[waikiore 399]

The water is a lot deeper off the Milford start line than Narrow Neck-just saying. And starting around North Head means all records cant be used anyway.

[K4309 263]

4 hours ago, Zozza said:

I work down near Quay St a few times. per week and get a good waft of the Parnell Poo Pipe throughout the day. The smell is shocking.  What the hell have the rich pr#cks in Parnell been eating lately? Whatever it is, it is enough to bring tears to one's eye's let me tell yuh!

It is not Parnell's poo. It is from West Auckland and the Central city. C'mon with the basic details guys.

It is a trunk pipe, i.e. for transferring bulk wastewater from one half of the city to another half. If it were a branch line or a local line, then it would be Parnell's poo.

[aardvarkash10 960]

everyone knows that their sh*t don't stink in Parnell

[Zozza 293]

19 hours ago, K4309 said:

It is not Parnell's poo. It is from West Auckland and the Central city. C'mon with the basic details guys.

 

As a former Bogan,  I doth protest!  Surely it makes for more fun to examine what species of skunks PoshParnell crowd have been eating as delicacies lately?!

[Psyche 634]

250 l/s apparently so by my rough calcs its 150,000 tons of raw sewage per week, lets call it 3 weeks even by the 17th so lets call it 450,000 tons into the harbour. (Open to correction)

The capacity of a standard portaloo is about 150 litres so about 3,000,000 portaloos worth dumped into the  Waitemata or you could take a stab and say theres 500,000 people lined up on the shore every day to perform their ablutions...

Whichever way you slice and dice it, recreational activity while thats going on is not the preferred option.

 

[Steve 34]

I think we need to do a bit more maths.  Lets say that a tenth of Auckland's sewage is being spilt.  I know its way less.

So lets allow 4 flushes a day per person @ about 10 litres per flush.  Remember its only a couple of hundred mils per pee mixed with that 10 litres, but lets disregard that and call all 40 litres raw sewage. Roughly 1.6 million people live here so 160k x 40 = 6.4 million litres per day.  That's 74 litres per second not 250. 

If we factor in the immediate dilution of that sewage with 40 litres of water you might be looking tops 20% of that.

Say 15 litres per second of actual poos and wees.  I get 27000 tons not 450000 tons over 3 weeks.

So its probably somewhere in the middle.  Not trying to say anything at all. 

Just playing with sh*t.

[Psyche 634]

 My story sounded better!