Watercare declares independence from Auckland

Watercare is the ONLY local government entity that will survive Auckland's draconian re-organisation unabolished, unscathed, and - in fact - considerably enlarged.

I've had a lot of interaction with Watercare over the years.

Between 1994 and 1998 I was occupied - some might say pre-occupied - with the Waikato Pipeline project (in its emergency guise and then as permanent supply, see elsewhere in this blog for info about the Manukau Agreement that arose). And then from 1998 to 2004 I was North Shore City Council's main man on the Watercare Shareholder Representative Group (each of Auckland's councils hold shares in Watercare, and these give them the right to govern Watercare through a Statement of Intent and through appointment of directors to Watercare's Board).

I have been on ARC since 2004, and note here that ARC's role in respect to Watercare is a environmental regulator. ARC does not hold shares in Watercare. I was ARC commissioner when Watercare sought extensions to its resource consents to operate its "Pond 2 Landfill", which is on the edge of the Manukau Harbour, and is where most of Auckland's sewage sludge is presently disposed of. On the periphery of this, I have also acted as Conmmissioner on other wastewater related consents - notably North Shore City Council's wastewater and stormwater network discharge consent hearings.

Under SuperCity legislation, all of the Auckland Region's wastewater and freshwater networks and systems will be integrated, and transferred to Watercare. I understand that Watercare will maintain its status as a "Council Controlled Organisation", and that Auckland Council will "govern" it through an Annual Statement of Intent and through the hiring and firing of Watercare Board Directors.

I have to say that this is a remarkably arms-length arrangement. It would be hard to name a single project or initiative that Watercare has been responsible for over the past decade that has been driven by the collective will of Auckland ratepayers and exercised through the governance arrangements that exist, and which serve to protect Watercare - shelter it - from the will of the people.

Before I get too carried away here, I will talk only about 3 things:

Puketutu. Watercare sought a designation and resource consents to dispose of biosolids (Auckland sewage) into Puketutu. Manukau City Council did not accept the designation, and ARC declined the resource consents. Among the reasons for the rejections were that there were significant Maori concerns over what Watercare intended, and also that commissioners did not accept watercare's contention that its activities would "rehabilitate" the quarry on Puketutu. There were other reasons. Watercare has appealed those decisions - as is its right. Unusually - even significantly - Watercare has gone public in NZ Herald and its own oublic magazine (Interflow) to assert that: "Watercare continues to support vision for Puketutu Island..." Extraordinary really. This public body is giving two fingers - in public - to Auckland's regional environmental regulators. This is heading to a gunfight. Reason: Watercare has backed itself - and Auckland - into a shitty little corner. Critical to this is Watercare hanging onto the right of commercial polluters to dump heavy metal contaminants into sewers, thereby contaminating otherwise clean sewage, rendering it dangerous to apply to land - as is the practice in Northern hemisphere cities, Sydney, and so on. Dumping sewage biosolids in a hole in an island in a harbour is dark age stuff. But Watercare wants that "vision", and is pressing on its independent, unaccountable course.

Bureaucracy: A thickening layer of bureaucracy is growing between Auckland Council and Watercare - between elected decision-makers, and the managers responsible for delivering Auckland's water and wastewater services. Some degree of transparency is possible now - and is reported - comparing and bench-marking the relative performance of local services provided by North Shore, Waitakere, Manukau and Auckland City. This is good for performance management and reporting. After the integration, this separation will be absorbed into the Watercare corporation. Councillors will want to get a good handle on what Watercare is doing - and bureaucrats will be needed to extract useful information. But information assymetry will be alive and well: Watercare will know everything and Council bureaucrats will only be able to guess at the facts. Unless there is an independent audit. In my memory - there has only been one such independent audit. While I was on the SRG I managed to get support for international authority - Halcrow - to investigate Watercare's performance. No filing cabinet remained closed - in theory. It was a very useful report - which Watercare sought to influence, manipulate and deflect relevant recommendations - even going so far as to commission Price Waterhouse (if my memory serves me right) to rebut Halcrow. The thickening layer of bureacrats will further distance elected representatives from what is happening....

Wastewater network overflows: In this issue of Interflow, Watercare admits to 9 overflows from its sewer network to 30th September due to stormwater getting into the network, and 1 due to external power failure. Interflow notes that: "illegal stormwater inflows into Local Network Operators' sewers can cause overflows in heavy rain...." Speaking from experience, I am aware that exactly this problem applied on the North Shore. It's sewere network overflowed in heavy rain, and also when there was a power failure. That is why North Shore has invested heavily in storage systems to collect overflows (before they overflow), and why most pump stations have standby generators that kick in when there is an external power failure. In this way, North Shore is aiming to achieve a target of no more than 2 overflows per year. North Shore is setting an example. And here's the rub: a little birdie has told me that Watercare is propsoing a target of 6 overflows/year from local networks. 300% worse than North Shore's target. Talk about lowest common denominator. That's what integration will give Auckland I think - a decline in environmental standards and a structural failure of governance.

There's a lot more to say on this. Keep watching.

Stormwater slips through cracks in Supercity reforms

Given Auckland's high annual rainfall and the increasing incidence of weather bomb problems, it is concerning that Parliament's Supercity Select Committee recommends that Auckland's stormwater be separated from the management of Auckland's water and wastewater.

Their decision adds weight to worries that Watercare is being shaped into a neat vertically integrated business funded by revenues from water and wastewater charges. This business model would be upset by Auckland's stormwater challenges, but then public services do not always lend themselves to market solutions.

Today, Auckland's "three-water" services are delivered locally in an integrated way. Councils recognise how inter-twined our waters are, whether we like it or not, and they need to be managed together for a host of reasons.

In the old days, stormwater was managed by council roading departments. But even that model will not possible under Supercity proposals, because roads are to be managed by a separate transport infrastructure agency with little interest in stormwater.

Stormwater cannot be allowed to flow through the cracks in these reforms. Integrated management of Auckland's stormwater assets and ponds and flowpaths is essential.

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.