Permanent solution to Taupō's broken wastewater pipes could be 'months' away

A permanent solution to the burst water mains which saw 190,000 litres of wastewater pumped into Lake Taupō could be months away.

The Taupō District Council said 70 per cent of the town's wastewater went into the lake, as residents were asked to stop flushing their toilets.

Wastewater is no longer reaching the lake.

Council chief executive Gareth Green said a long-term solution is going to take some time to complete.

"I'm talking probably months," says Mr Green. 

The Council had staff working throughout the night to control the situation. 

"The team have got the bypass in place so we've got some major pumps that've been bought in, a couple of cut zones so we are basically pumping the wastewater over the break, over land. That will stay in place for the next couple of days while we get a more permanent temporary solution in place that won't require the pumps.

"It was all hands on deck to reduce that as quickly as we could and got it down to a trickle pretty quickly within one to two hours. unfortunately some still continued through to 2am this morning when we were able to cub that flow completely," says Mr Green.

On RNZ's Morning Report today, Mr Green said the waste had spread along 200 metres of the lake front and down to the Waikato River.

The 20-year-old pipe has a 100-year design life.

"A lack of investment did not cause this, we have a very thorough maintenance and renewal schedule and that did not cause that event," says Mr Green.

"Left alone, pipes like that don't break so somethings happened and we believe it is some sort of ground movement. either through land subsidence or land change land slippage, vibrations being the main road with heavy vehicles, earthquakes, we had a number of earthquakes last week or a combination of those things," he told 1 NEWS.

"We are still asking people to conserve water, definitely reduce your shower use, reduce dish washing use and reduce the amount of waste water coming down the pipe,' says Mr Green." 

The Council is working with Waikato Regional Council and Tūwharetoa Trust Board - which owns the lakebed - on the clean-up.