Ants nesting in a circuit board resulted in the failure of the Tarawa Creek pump station in Bay of Plenty yesterday.
Photo: LDR / Sven Carlsson
Water filled reserve areas around the skatepark after a pump station lost power because of an ant nest in a circuit board.
The Volkner Island Reserve was turned into a lake when the pump station lost power yesterday morning.
Ōpōtiki township had experienced 44mm of rain over the past two days, according to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council Otara rain gauge.
Even greater levels were recorded upstream, with 57mm at the mouth of the Waioweka Gorge, and 67mm at Browns Bridge on the Otara River.
Ōpōtiki District Council engineering and services group manager Stace Lewer said the ponding at the reserve around the skate park occurred after the worst of the rain had finished and was because the Tarawa Creek pump station lost power.
"It was resolved fairly promptly as the issue was an ant nest in the circuit board, which was a rare event."
He said because there had been so much rain, and more was on the way, it would take a few days for the water to go down and asked people to stay out of the water for health reasons.
"Please avoid playing in the waters as urban stormwater isn't very clean. It can include run-off from roads and footpaths things like oil and rubbish."
Other than the issue with the pump station, Lewer said it was reassuring that the infrastructure had held up.
"In a heavy rain event such as this, even with a short pump outage, our infrastructure held up with water ponding in the reserve area as it is designed to do and not in town, roads or residences."
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