Watercare Heads for Sand over Report

This diagram is from a report about Water Sensitive Cities that it appears neither the public nor councillors are allowed to officially see, according to a story in today's NZ Herald. Having spent many years immersed in the region's sewage problems, and most of those years spent trying to "govern" Watercare, I am relieved that some action is being taken to shine a light on the traditional and expensive methods and systems favoured by Watercare, and to enable Auckland Councillors to become independently informed, so they can take decisions in confidence, and without being put under the pump of Watercare propaganda. (By the way you can read the report here.

According to the report, Auckland's water management practices categorise us in the diagram as a "drainage city". And that would have to be right when you think at all about the proposed Central Interceptor Project. Further explanation is contained about this in the submission I made (along with many community groups by the way) to the consent hearing.

The report contains this explanation of the diagram:

".....The more complex drivers on the right of the framework require new infrastructural and institutional capacities. Transitions research explains that the shift to this side is challenging, since existing technologies, institutions and knowledge typically create path dependencies that are difficult to overcome. A combination of technological lock-in, institutional inertia and fragmentation and the challenge of reorienting professional and organisational capacity towards a new approach all serve as barriers to sector-wide transformation. Success therefore requires concerted and ongoing effort, requiring ongoing commitment, monitoring and investment to steer change in desirable directions...."

Watercare - in my opinion - has been a dinosaur of an organisation for the past couple of decades, when assessed against modern water sensitive criteria. It has steadfastly resisted governance changes that might shift its "technological lock-in and institutional inertia". Big pipes, big pumps, big ocean discharges, big landfills for biosolids, big trade waste toxics disposal down the sewer, and big electricity consumption (biggest in Auckland region). The very opposite of water sensitive and environmentally sustainable. That is what makes much of Auckland drainage city.

Having worked with a number of organisations and community groups trying to get Watercare to change its ways (...in desirable directions.... ) I know to my cost how Watercare seems to have the discretionary budget to bring into its embrace each and every credible expert in town - and even from Australia. Most well funded, and well advised community organisations wishing to mount a professional challenge against Watercare's "path dependencies" and resistance to "a new approach", cannot find an expert witness for love or money. (Could be a career limiting move....)

Since amalgamation, Watercare's monopoly on water and wastewater services has extended to a monopoly on three water management ideas, thinking and spending. It is time for a rethink. Maybe this report is not the final word. In my time Auckland commissioned a similar independent report from Halcrow. My advice to councillors, for what it is worth, is this: You represent ratepayers. You don't represent Watercare. When next you decide Watercare budgets, ensure you have commissioned expert independent advice.