In 2022, a study commissioned by Wellington Regional Council and conducted by Jim Lynch, the founder of Zealandia, found that establishing a wildlife sanctuary in the water catchment area was "technically and practically feasible".

[3] The council has been working to protect plant, fish, insect and bird species, by intensively controlling possums, rats, stoats, deer, pigs and goats.

[1] This complemented the country's first public water supply dam, completed in Karori west of the city two years earlier.

[1] The original system was decommissioned and emptied in the late 1980s, and a new treatment plant was built which takes water direct from weirs in both river catchments.

The new plant produces up to 60 million litres per day, supplying about 15 percent of the water used in the Wellington urban area.