Has Auckland outgrown its water supply?

Saturday, 30 May 2020

Further water restrictions were imposed as Auckland dams fell to critical levels in May 2020.

'You feel like you are staring into the frightening future - you've seen all the movies about viruses and zombies running out of buildings.'

Sir Bob Harvey should know as a former chair of the New Zealand Film Commission, but the screenplay he is talking about is not Covid-19, but Auckland's drought-induced water shortage.

'This is not a movie, this is the same thing with water, the same terrifying future,' said Harvey whose first term as the mayor of Waitakere City was shaped by Auckland's previous water crisis of 1993-94.

Then the city's water storage dams, the only available source of bulk water, fell to just 32 per cent, sparking a massive conservation effort and ending the city's complacency about its supply.

* New ideas needed to supply winter crops as drought grip continues

* Auckland drought: Unprecedented water restrictions begin

The Lower Nihotupu Dam in the Waitakere Ranges is only 33 per cent full.

Yet 26 years later a bigger, thirstier Auckland is again under mandatory water use restrictions with the storage lakes around 43 per cent full - 33 per cent below normal - and rain forecasts, unconvincing.

Climate agency Niwa is predicting rainfall to be either normal, or slightly more likely below average, from June to August, with river flows most likely to be below average.

Without the backstop of a major pipeline drawing water continuously from the Waikato River since 2002, Auckland would now be out of water.

The pipeline was the long-term solution to Auckland's dependence on rain-filled dams in the Waitakere and Hunua Ranges, but add half a million people and industry since 1994, and the same problem is back.

Life is starting to resemble the 1994 crisis. Bans on outdoor water use have been in place since May 16, and 489 complaints have been laid about breaches.

More draconian restrictions are still a possibility, and long-running restrictions could stretch well into next year if the supply lakes don't recover sufficiently through a hoped-for wet season.

So have Auckland's politicians been asleep at the wheel since the 1990s, have the warnings of climate change disrupting past dependable weather patterns been ignored, and action been left too late?

'It's a drought,' is the blunt verdict of Gary Taylor, the executive director of the Environmental Defence Society, a not-for-profit group seeking to improve the environment.

Taylor has been up-close with Auckland's water woes, chairing the former Auckland Regional Council (ARC) operations committee, which oversaw the bulk water supplier Watercare, through the 1994 crisis.

Watercare's 2018 asset management plan shows population forecasts and the steps to bring on additional water supply

'It's not climate change, it's weather - but it is an indication of what we can expect more of as a consequence of climate change over the next several decades,' he told Stuff.

HAS AUCKLAND'S WATER SUPPLY FAILED TO KEEP UP?

Not according to the council-owned water company Watercare, which since the 2010 amalgamation of eight local bodies, has complete responsibility for water and wastewater.

It has a 20-year plan to increase water supply in steps, with nearly half of $4.9 billion of planned investment over the next decade, to deal with forecast growth.

Watercare said it plans and prepares those steps conservatively, but construction and spending is aimed at being 'just in time'.

Nature has not played ball with Watercare's best-laid plans.

Two years ago it gained consent to take an additional 25 million litres of water a day from the Waikato River during the wetter season, but the expanded treatment plant won't be ready until August.

Even if the plant was ready now, the river level - due to the same drought that has heightened Auckland's needs - is still below the point at which the water can be drawn.

The doubling of supply from the Waikato River is foreseen in two steps in 2035 and 2052, but needs a resource consent, with an application in a long queue at the Waikato Regional Council.

Critically though, just before each of the big next steps occurs, Watercare data shows supply running close to only just meeting average annual demand.

Auckland mayor Phil Goff outlining the need for mandatory water restrictions.

A short-term bid to gain access to river water allocated to Hamilton City Council, but not being used, is being considered over the next months by that city's politicians.

HAVE WARNING SIGNS BEEN MISSED?

Watercare chief executive Raveen Jaduram has admitted only that with hindsight, had it known that forecast rain would not arrive, then restrictions might have been brought in earlier.

'The forecasts from Niwa and Metservice are sort of all over the place, by their own admission,' said Jaduram.

Rain forecast for March did not arrive, the same again in April, and May is forecast to be average or below average, with Niwa picking average to drier than average, through to August.

2019 delivered Auckland the driest first half-year on record, and by June the storage lakes were at 59.2 per cent, 25 per cent below normal - but then an August to December deluge got things back on track.

This year has broken that dry record.

Taylor finds fault with the delay in introducing mandatory restrictions - something which Watercare and the mayor Phil Goff said was due to the Covid-19 lockdown.

'Watercare or the council was a bit slow in introducing the level one measures, that's the principal criticism I would make - they should have done that a month earlier (April),' said Taylor.

Councillor and planning committee chair, Chris Darby.

'I wrote them a note at the time saying if you think Covid-19 is a reason for not introducing it [restrictions)] that is mistaken thinking.'

Jaduram said restrictions themselves were not the main lever to reduce consumption, that Aucklanders had responded to calls for voluntary restraint, and major users had done likewise.

'Watercare didn't predict, and I don't think anyone else predicted that we would get the severity and immediacy of the drought impact, as big as we did over last summer,' the mayor Phil Goff said.

'There's not much point in entering into a blame game,' he said.

ARE AUCKLANDERS THE PROBLEM?

Per capita Aucklanders are the second-most efficient users of water in the country, each using an average of 156 litres a day in 2019, beaten only by those in the Western Bay of Plenty on 122 litres.

That is less than half of the 400 litres a day of the 1980s.

Raveen Jaduram, the chief executive of council company Watercare.

A conservation drive by the former ARC at the start of the 1990s, the roll-out of metering and user-pays by the former Auckland City Council at the same time, and the jolt of the 1994 crisis made the city much more water-conscious.

Senior councillor Chris Darby, who chairs the planning committee, said Aucklanders don't look so good when compared globally.

Darby told a council meeting, Copenhagen (at around 100 litres per person per day) had per capita consumption half or two-thirds of Auckland's.

'Its very, very dangerous to swallow the Watercare soundbites, it can lead to choking,' he said.

Jaduram said the region's consumption at the start of May was 440 million litres a week, and had fallen to 428 million by the third week, with a target of 420, and hopes of getting as low as 400 million litres.

IS IT AUCKLAND'S LOCAL GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE?

The amalgamation of Auckland's eight local bodies in 2010, followed a Royal Commission of Inquiry, but delivered a stripped-down model including five agencies to operate at arms-length from the politicians.

Watercare, a single council-owned company, expanded from being a wholesaler to the water operations of six councils, to the region's one-stop shop for water and wastewater.

Legislation required it to be a lowest-cost operator, and like the other agencies, runs under its own board of directors, with strategic direction from the council.

Watercare's partial-autonomy includes being completely funded by its own tariffs and charges, needing only the approval of council to move those annually in line with rates increases.

Critics of the council controlled-organisations (CCO) model argue a lack of political accountability - although an independent review of the model is also currently looking at whether councillors have made the most of the powers they have.

'We should have been better informed and better prepared. 2017 (when storms contaminated the main storage lake) and 2019 (the drought) should have slapped us into action,' Darby said.

Taylor, who had a key political role on the ARC during the 1993-94 crisis, and had a stint on Watercare's board, supported the CCO model.

Watercare is taking water from Western Springs lake for use by commercial users not needing drinking-standard water.

'I don't subscribe to the 'it would be better if council took it over' theory,' he said.

'We should be rolling out that system (CCOs) nationally with maybe three or four entities instead of the plethora of local councils that have got themselves into trouble,' said Taylor.

Some councillors have been critical of Watercare's response to the shortage, and will meet the company in a meeting on Tuesday in Mayor Goff's office.

HOW WILL AUCKLAND GET THROUGH THE CURRENT SHORTAGE?

'We need rain,' said Watercare's Jaduram.

'We are trying to get demand down - that won't save us, but that will help us - it buys us time until hopefully the rain comes.'

Big commercial users have swung in behind the restraint call.

Brewer Lion NZ said it had cut water use by up to 30 per cent at its major East Tamaki plant.

A spokesperson for drinks maker Coca-Cola Amatil said among a range of other moves, it was 'exploring the ability for our non-Auckland manufacturing plants to pick up additional products and volumes'.

In Australia the $4 billion de-salination plant in Wonthaggi, Victoria is a public-private partnership.

Roadmaker and infrastructure firm Fulton Hogan has switched from filling up tankers via fire hydrants from the city network, to seeking out sources in quarries, and by installing a tank tapped into a bore at its Mt Wellington base.

Watercare returned in May to the city's first public bulk water supply at Western Springs, taking water from the lake to supply cleaning and other firms who do not need drinking standard water.

'Auckland won't run out of water - at worst if there is no rain, we will still have 170 million litres a day,' (mostly from Waikato River) Jaduram told a media conference.

But that 'worst' could see the city move to stage 3 restrictions, which might shut big commercial users for one day a week, at a time when commerce is trying to recover from the Covid-19 lockdown.

'If there's low rain in winter and summer you're going to have much greater restraint on industry, and higher voluntary compliance from Aucklanders,' said Goff.

'If everyone saves a little now, it will make a difference.'

WHAT DOES AUCKLAND'S WATER FUTURE LOOK LIKE?

Everyone is agreed a major re-set is required on how Auckland beefs up its future water supply.

Darby has proposed a major workshop involving councillors and Watercare, on how to thrash out a way ahead, and that is tentatively set for July.

Jaduram and Goff have both talked about additional sources, such as treatment of 'grey' or wastewater into drinking quality water - an approach Goff said is a major contributor in Singapore.

The pair and Taylor have talked about a de-salination plant, which turns sea water into drinking water, of which six major plants exist in Australia.

De-salination is costly and energy-hungry technology with Victoria's costing $4 billion to build, and on completion in 2012 was put on stand-by until needed from 2017 onwards.

For the 2020-21 year it will supply 125 billion litres, nearly a quarter of the state's needs.

In the longer term, Auckland needs consent to double its Waikato River take.

It applied to the Waikato Regional Council in 2013, but the Resource Management Act requires a first-in, first-heard process, and Auckland has moved from 130 in the queue to 89 today, according to Goff.

He first wrote to the Environment Minister in April 2020, seeking a law change allowing applications to be dealt with in order of urgency, or priority.

The council's hastily re-cut budget for 2020-21 to reflect a $525 million Covid-19 hit, notes 'Watercare may need to soon invest $50 million to $180 million in critical water supply infrastructure to make sure Auckland doesn’t run out of safe, reliable drinking water'.

All agree that conversations about water will need public input, deciding what level of security of supply is wanted, and can be paid for.

The current theoretical one-in-200-year drought standard will be shattered by climate change, expected to bring more frequent extreme dries, as well as more extreme deluges.

A review of how the current drought has been handled is already being talked about.