Three Waters Governance under Auckland Reorganisation

The Local Government (Auckland Council) Bill 2009, for which submissions to Select Ctte close 26th of June, provides for Watercare Services to "plan and manage integration of water supply and wastewater services" in s.24. (It does this by amending the Local Government (Tamaki Makaurau Reorganisation) Act 2009, as it happens.)

It is essential there are strong submissions on this provision.

It is essential that - if there is to be vertically integrated management of Auckland's water economy - then this must also include stormwater. It must be the 3 waters.

Some argue that, because stormwater is essentially local, it falls locally, then its management should sit with land use planning, transport programmes (gutters are used to carry stormwater flows), and other community programmes (rain is nice and fuzzy and good for environmental education and drains and what happens when it all gets to the sea - sort of stuff).

I completely disagree with this approach. In my time (6 years) on North Shore City Council, which does have vertically integrated wastewater - it managed local sewer network and Rosedale wastewater treatment plant - the benefits of 3 water management were recognised by senior staff, councillors and public alike.

We have a tui feeder in our garden. I put sugar water in it every morning - I forget the odd day. They come along and preen and perform. And they sing...

You cannot separate stormwater from water supply and wastewater. Stormwater infiltration is the single biggest challenge to wastewater reticulation and treatment - they become intwined in the pipe network. Their integrated management is essential.

Rainwater is a component of water supply - for non-potable uses (washing machines and toilet flushing). Many homes in the region rely soley on rainwater for their supply of all water.

Wastewater across the region is NOT all reticulated. Many homes have onsite systems. Many of these are very modern and competently engineered.

It is simply not good enough to charge Watercare with managing the "easy" bit, the piped bit, the metered and attractive to privatise bit - when there is so much more to water, wastewater and stormwater.

Watercare has had a poor record in my view across the region, because it has been so focussed on end-of-pipe solutions. This stance is why Auckland has seen Eco-water at Waitakere, Manukau Water at Manukau, North Shore's 3 water division - all active in managing 3 waters together, across their territorial areas - not just end of pipe. If this vertical integration is to proceed, then that expertise must then be retained in Watercare, and its role and responsibility must move to include also: on-site wastewater systems; the new stormwater systems that have evolved across North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau which are based on streams, ponds, detention and riparian planting - rather than pipes and concrete outfalls; and rainwater collection systems.

Watercare gets real about Demand Management

Well. I don't want to get your - or my - hopes up too much with that headline. But the Regional 3 Water Strategy document completed in the last few months is hopeful. It was presented to the Auckland Regional Sustainable Development Forum meeting last Friday.

Representatives from most of the participating organisations were in attendance. Elected representatives and mayors from across Auckland Region heard the presentation from a Watercare spokesman. I will copy here the summary from the document:

"1 To place a strong emphasis on water demand
management to delay the need to provide a new
water source for up to 20 years, with estimated
deferred expenditure of $300 million;
2 To reduce the gross per person demand for water by
15% of 2004 levels by 2025. An additional 10% of
total demand will be met by beneficially using treated
wastewater for industrial purposes and rainwater
for non-potable household purposes over the same
period (To be confirmed by cost benefit analysis).
3 To plan for higher regulatory standards in relation to drinking water and wide-ranging changes to the way we manage our water supply systems, from source to tap;
4 To secure long-term access to the Waikato River as the main future water source for Auckland, but continuing to investigate a new northern water source, increased use of central Auckland aquifers and the use of rain tanks and/or treated wastewater as possible alternative future water sources;
5 To provide a new central interceptor to augment trunk wastewater sewer capacity as a matter of urgency, to provide for growth, meet agreed levels of service and satisfy regulatory requirements;

6 To ensure continued focus on maintaining and/or enhancing water quality of the Manukau Harbour by optimising and improving treatment provided by the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant;
7 To secure access to a second regional wastewater facility at Rosedale for use once the capacity of the Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant is reached;
8 To manage stormwater locally in accordance with levels of service agreed with the local community for flood, stream and contaminant management and, in addition, to develop regionally consistent policy and infrastructure design and implementation standards
for a range of issues that affect the delivery of both stormwater and wastewater services;
9 To plan future three waters services to reflect the need to minimise use of and conserve energy, as far as practicable, while still meeting agreed levels of service; and
10 To assess opportunities for efficiencies in resource use and cost savings that can be achieved
through the joint planning and implementation of integrated solutions for the delivery of water supply, wastewater and stormwater services and develop an equitable basis of sharing the benefits achieved......"

Having fought Watercare hard over its wasteful and expensive track-record of building large projects and over-emphasising "supply management" instead or - or at the expense of "demand management", and of the financial benefits of deferring capital expenditure through more careful use of existing resources, and of the ability to re-use treated wastewater for non-potable purposes, and of the need to be talking about "integrated management", I am satisfied that these words now take their place strongly in these 10 summary points.

The cynic in me wonders how much this document and its content played in persuading the Royal Commission and now Government to support vertical integration of at the least the 2 charged for waters - water supply and wastewater. Still. The document exists now and has some regional traction, so it's important that Watercare and the other water operators deliver it.

This was the graph in the presentation I liked best. Basically it shows the demand/supply line (the deep blue line) for water from Auckland over the next 100 years from 1999. This line is based on current practices - ie if people want more water we'll just keep on pumping it up from the Waikato (at great cost for treatment and pumping). The red step line shows chunks of new supply being built and brought on stream. What is really interesting now, are the two dotted lines. The lower dotted black line shows the demand pattern that is now being aimed at through building a big hunk of "demand management" into the strategic plan. And the dotted brown one shows the delay that change in fresh water supply demand will trigger in bringing on new supply.

So it's all very interesting. Even though it's a regional strategy, there is some effort made in the document to look at the matter of stomrwater. There's even mention in there of the need to ensure Low Impact Urban Development approaches to handling the issue of stormwater run-off. That's also good.

You might like to check these documents out yourself. You can see them at: Watercare Click on the links that take you to the 3 Water Strategy documents. Some of these are chunky pdf's but good information.