Wellington contractors have been racing to fix a broken sewage pipe spilling into a suburban stream in Khandallah as the region loses nearly half of its water supply to leaks.
The stream was "discoloured, and it smelt very obviously of wastewater from a sewer line", resident Neil Deans said.
Deans and his wife Lynn Cadenhead came across the polluted waterway while weeding the area on Wednesday.
"You could see it was running for some time because there was algae sediment stuff on the bed of the stream," Cadenhead said.
Without hesitation, they called the authorities because "the stream goes directly into Wellington Harbour and we knew it could put people at risk", Deans said.
Wellington City councillor Diane Calvert said the break is "quite significant because not only is this sewage seeping into the harbour, that stream is also used for freshwater fish to spawn".
In a statement provided to Newshub, Wellington Water said it managed to stop the wastewater seeping into the stream on Thursday night and was now investigating what caused the pipe to break in the first place
It comes as the region is also losing nearly half of its water supply to leaky pipes which Calvert said is because of years of underinvestment.
"We should be making sure our water infrastructure is our top priority and unfortunately we don't."
Earlier this month, Wellington City Council approved up to $2 million in extra funding to fix hundreds of leaky pipes over summer and autumn.
But locals have said that's not enough.
"This isn't something you can fix in a year, it's something that has to have a long-term strategy and that requires ongoing funding and recognition that this is important," said Deans.
