Auckland water use rises despite call for savings

Tuesday, 9 July 2019

Aucklanders are being urged to use less water after a very dry start to the year.

Aucklanders have failed to heed the call to save water in a bid to curb declining levels in the city's storage dams.

Weekly consumption to Sunday was up 3 per cent on the previous period, although one rainy day had lifted lake levels.

The storage lakes which supply most of Auckland's water are nearly 20 per cent below their July average, at 63.45 per cent.

The council company Watercare called for conservation a week ago when the levels hit 59.2 per cent.

**READ MORE:

Water levels at Watercare's Upper Nihotipu Dam in the Waitakere Ranges, on Sunday

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'We are not anticipating summer water restrictions at this stage,' Watercare said.

'We would however like Aucklanders to be mindful about their water use as the dry period continues.'

Lake levels have fallen after one of the driest first-half years on record in Auckland.

The two main catchments in the Hunua and Waitakere ranges have received 34 per cent and 44 per cent less rainfall than normal over that period.

Apart from a brief storm disruption to supplies in 2017, the call to save water is the first since Auckland's 1994 water crisis.

Then, following a dry 1993 and summer of 1994, the region's supplies fell to 36 per cent, before solid rain averted rationing.

That crisis prompted the building of a pipeline taking water from the Waikato River.

The pipeline generally contributes 15-25 per cent of the city's water, but is being ramped up to 35 per cent to conserve lake levels.

Climate forecaster NIWA is expecting a drier than usual July, and hopes are being pinned on a pattern that could deliver 'increased wetness' to the upper North Island in August and September.

Auckland needs not just general rainfall, but intense rain falling in the two main catchment areas in the west and southeast.

While Auckland's population has risen by 38 per cent since the 1994 crisis, Watercare said in addition to the pipeline, more water was held in new urban reservoirs, and there was improved management of the balancing act across the supply sources.