As neighbour to the Hauraki Gulf and with a team of life-long sailors, Orams Marine has a keen interest in protecting the health of our oceans. 

In 2020, eagle-eyed occupants of central Auckland’s Beaumont Street noticed a procession of oversized steel tanks making their way through traffic and into the Orams Marine yard. What they were seeing were the first pieces of kit which would eventually became a comprehensive water treatment facility, designed to ensure yard water run-off is free of contaminants.

An in-built water treatment plant separates and treats run off and stormwater collected across hardstand and covered work areas, built over the last two years. The Orams Marine team worked with sustainability experts prior to the build’s start, with the goal of setting a new shipyard industry standard of discharge water quality, protecting the Waitematā Harbour and New Zealand’s environment longterm.

The treatment facilities were created as part of Orams’ substantial new development which has seen the yard’s capacity triple in size. Substantial new indoor work areas, mean the best approach is to separate strong boat washwaters from less-contaminated general stormwater run-off, and to treat these flows separately and effectively.

To do this, the new hardstand area has been divided into sub-catchments to direct the two channels of water – washwater or stormwater runoff – into one of the two systems.

Washwater passes through a filtration system, where the finely distributed contaminant load within can be stored and recovered. This process, using an automated chemically-aided filtration system, produces clean water for return to the marina or public sewer system, while recovered solids are dewatered and sent to a controlled landfill.

Stormwater run-off’s residual contaminant load is tackled through a two-stage treatment for suspended solids and dissolved heavy metals removal, before continuing as overflow into the marina basin.

These two systems can be described as the ‘Best Practicable Option’ resulting in a discharge water of a far higher quality than has been standard for the industry.
Oram’s aim is to set a new benchmark for the shipyard industry worldwide, as well as for Auckland coastal protection.