Wellington's south coast businesses warn they'll have to relocate or close, with the nearby wastewater plant still months away from being fully operational.
Billions of litres of untreated wastewater has been discharged into the sea since the Moa Point treatment plan failed during heavy rain in February.
The plant is set to restart on November 12 – but will be brought back online gradually through to February.
Jack Candlish from Verdure Surf in Lyall Bay said it has been a "horrible year" with his business one immediately impacted by people no longer visiting the area.
"As soon as it happened, I was like, 'oh, this is the worst possible scenario, the worst-case scenario'."
Candlish decided to pivot his business to boost sales.
"I thought the best option was probably to try and improve the website, and try and bring in some more work from out of town."
He wasn't optimistic about local customers coming back to the area until the plant was fully operational.
"I think that's still going to put a lot of people off. Personally, I haven't been in the water since February and, yeah, I can't imagine it's going to be a huge difference until the plant's [fully] reopened.
Candlish added he'd probably have to move his workshop, likely to Raglan at this stage.
Smells and untreated sewage could continue
According to Tiaki Wai, as capacity increases at Moa Point, the amount of untreated wastewater released will reduce significantly.
During the recovery period, however, it warned some wastewater will continue to be released through the long outfall.
During heavy rainfall, untreated sewage could be discharged through the short outfall in Tarakena Bay.
It also said there could times of "increased odour" around Moa Point as the the "biological treatment process" is re-established.
City to hold an event to bring people back
Destination KRL general manager, Steve Walters said he knew of two businesses that had closed their doors, and warned there would be more.
Wellington City Council is looking into organising an event for the end of summer to bring people back to the bay.
Mayor Andrew Little said waiting until then would be the best time the council could do it with certainty that everything would be OK.
"I think what's really important is that, with the catastrophic failure that we've had, is that we signal to Wellingtonians and to everybody that Lyall Bay is back."
Walters said businesses couldn't wait until then.
"These businesses have got rates, insurance, staff cost to pay right now. Having an event at the end of a second summer is too late. We think there's other ways that they could be helping businesses more," he said.
One example Walters cited was offering rates relief to businesses.
"That would be a great start. We'd love to think that the similar sort of support they gave in the parliamentary occupation, million of dollars to 40 businesses, those businesses were suffering for 23 days. These businesses will suffer for 13 months," he said.
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