Inspections and maintenance
Our stormwater network is made up of 216 kilometres of stormwater pipes, 3,029 service lines, 18 pump stations, and lots of manholes, open waterways, sumps and sump leads, kerb outlets, wetlands, overland flow paths, public soak pits, bridges, culverts and swales. Ponds, private pipes, private soak pits, gutters and down pipes, and storage devices also form part of the wider stormwater network.
Streams and open drains
Council owns and maintains 52.7 kilometres of open waterways in our district. This maintenance includes:
- inspections and engaging contractors to carry out vegetation removal (using hand and machinery)
- mowing around waterways
- sediment removal.
We need resource consents from Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC) to extract gravel and sediments from streambeds. We applied for a Global open waterway maintenance consent in 2023.
Pipes and manholes
Kāpiti is divided into 34 stormwater zones, and we have a systematic programme to inspect all our pipe assets and manholes.
We have an ongoing programme of work to assess the condition of pipes and manholes.
The results of these assessments are used to plan our preventive maintenance, including asset renewals, to avoid catastrophic asset failures causing flooding.
We also inspect and clean all stormwater pipe inlets and outlets, including beach outlets on a schedule and after heavy rainfall, to prevent sand build-up that blocks the pipes and could cause flooding.