Watercare exploits its Requiring Authority

It was when I began preparing my submission to Watercare's RMA applications related to the Central Interceptor project that I began to understand what it means for us all, now that Watercare has been granted the power to be its own Requiring Authority....

I needed to remind myself of the details of the application, and so consulted the Council website. The first page you find easily is the public notice.

In this notice the following broad information is contained about the notice of requirement, and about the reasons changes are needed in the designations. It reads like this:

Construction sites are required at the surface along the tunnel alignment to construct the tunnels and provide permanent facilities associated with ongoing operations and maintenance. There will be a total of 19 construction sites along the main tunnel and link tunnel alignments. These sites are located where connections to the existing or proposed network will occur, where a construction base is required for tunnel construction, and/or where permanent access is required for maintenance/inspection purposes. Most sites are required for all three purposes.

Further down the public notice readers are advised: "Any person or organisation may make a submission on the notices of requirement....". Links are provided. Several of these lead to this page. And then you click the link there: Lodged notices of requirement.

This is where it gets interesting.

If you look at the "Lodged notices of requirement" what immediately strikes you is that there is nothing there for the Central Interceptor project. Well. Not until you get right to the bottom, and there you will find this information:

Limited notification 
The following Notices of requirement for the Watercare CSO Collector sewer sites (6) will be subject to limited notification. Only those persons who are notified by council will be able to lodge submissions on the sites.

Only those persons who are notified by Council!.

No mention of the familiar words "Central Interceptor" only the abbreviation: "CSO".

This is followed by six links. These relate to: Moa Reserve, Wingate Street, Waterview Reserve, Howlett and Waterview Walkways, Seaside Reserve, Alan Wood Reserve.

I suggest you have a look at one of these. I suggest Moa Reserve. 

What you get is a glossy summary document entitled: Central Interceptor Scheme: Combined Sewer Overflow Collector Sewers Notice of Requirement 1.

The first page of this document contains this information:

WATERCARE SERVICES LIMITED (“Watercare”) gives notice of a requirement for a designation of land for the construction, operation and maintenance of wastewater infrastructure.

The Requirement applies to land owned by Auckland Council....

The Requirement is for the designation of land required for temporary construction activities and for the long term operation, access, inspection and maintenance of wastewater infrastructure. Watercare requires that the designation be included on the relevant planning maps and schedules in the Auckland Council District Plan: (Auckland City Isthmus Section) and any subsequent proposed District Plan applying to the land subject to the designation....

Watercare is the water and wastewater service provider for Auckland. Watercare was approved as a requiring authority by notice in the New Zealand Gazette No. 69 on 21 June 2012....

Watercare is planning to construct a new wastewater interceptor, referred to as the “Central Interceptor”. The Central Interceptor comprises a tunnelled wastewater interceptor extending from Western Springs to the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant, with connections to Watercare’s existing wastewater network which will divert flow into the new interceptor.... 

So. What this reminds the reader is that Watercare is now a Requiring Authority. It wasn't before. Looking at the gazette notice we read the following:

Pursuant to section 167 of the Resource Management Act 1991, the Minister for the Environment hereby gives the following notice. 
N o t i c e 
1. Title and commencement—
(1) This notice may be cited as the Resource Management (Approval of Watercare Services Limited as Requiring Authority) Notice 2012. 
(2) This notice shall come into force on 1 July 2012. 
2. Approval as a requiring authority—Watercare Service Limited is hereby approved as a requiring authority, under section 167 of the Resource Management Act 1991, for its network utility operations of: 
(a) undertaking the distribution of water for supply; and 
(b) undertaking a drainage and sewerage system; including the operation, maintenance, replacement, upgrading and improvement of infrastructure related to these operations, in the Auckland region and in the Waikato Region, for the purposes of providing services to Auckland. 
3. Interpretation—This approval includes infrastructure relating to the abstraction, storage, supply and treatment of water and the collection, treatment and disposal of wastewater.

Interestingly, Section 167 of the RMA (which provides the Minister with the power to grant requiring authority powers), states the Minister should not grant these powers unless he or she is satisfied that:

...the applicant is likely to satisfactorily carry out all of the responsibilities of a requiring authority under this Act and will give proper regard to the interests of those affected and to the interests of the environment....

What is proposed for the Central Interceptor project appears to be the willful segmentation of the project into tiny pieces, each requiring its own little designation, and each apparently only being subject to submissions by invitation from Auckland Council - even though the land that is affected appears to be Council reserve land. Public land, and even though each of these little pieces is itself part of a much larger $800 million project.

I object to what appears to be an abuse of process.

Talk about trying to slip this one in under the public radar.....