Wellington losing 27 Olympic swimming pools of water a day through leaks

Friday, 9 December 2022

Wellington Water is posting videos featuring leaks like this one in Seatoun.

About 40% of Wellington’s water supply – roughly the equivalent of 27 Olympic sized swimming pools – is being wasted each day because of 5000-plus leaks from the capital region’s pipes, according to new estimates from Wellington Water.

With a hot summer coming – eventually – Wellington Water boss Colin Crampton is warning that there is little buffer in the system and people will have to conserve water over the coming months.

He predicted that Wellington will go to level three restrictions this summer, meaning all residential outdoor water use will be banned.

Making the situation worse, an increasing amount of the water being lost is on private property.

“We can’t be sure exactly how much is lost on private property due to the lack of residential meters, but we know it is a significant contributing factor,” Crampton said in an interview this week.

Wellington Water's CEO Colin Crampton has the job of making sure Wellingtonians have enough water.

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Wellington Water provides water services to the Wellington, Porirua, Hutt Valley, South Wairarapa councils and Greater Wellington.

The drinking water network is between 30 and 100 years old and made up of 2543km of pipeline, the equivalent distance of flying from Wellington to Sydney.

In winter, Wellington Water has between about 220 million litres of water available each day, with demand generally running at between 170 and 205 million litres.

Burst water pipe in Mt Victoria Wellington earlier this year.

In a dry summer, the amount of water available is 160 million litres. When people start watering their gardens and lawns, and demand exceeds capacity, Wellington Water must ask people to use less water.

But there was an additional challenge this year: There had been a significant increase in water lost through leaks compared to previous years, said Laurence Edwards, Wellington Water’s chief drinking water advisor.

Wellington Water estimates there are more than 5000 leaks in its network. During October and November, the utility fixed a total of 1341 leaks.

It is also trying to show Wellington region residents that it is serious about fixing leaks. It has six people working full-time on detection and 40 people fixing leaks. Like a lot of businesses it wants to hire more people but is struggling to recruit staff, Crampton said.

Having focused on the council network, Wellington Water is now looking at leaks on private property, where the incidence of leakage appears to be increasing. Like the public network, the private one is ageing but Wellington Water does not fix leaks on private property. Although it acknowledges that a “significant” amount of water on private property is being lost, it does not know how much.

Wellington Water’s approach is to talk to property owners and encourage them to fix the problem. Ultimately, councils can put metres on properties to force them to pay for water but Crampton said utility preferred to educate people about the need to be responsible.

Asked if the current situation showed a need for residential water metres and extra storage capacity, Crampton noted that Wellington Water’s job was to manage the network.

Funding comes from the councils, and decisions about new dams and meters were for councils to make, he said.

The current situation results from years of under-investment, Crampton said, adding that Wellington Water was telling its stakeholders, the councils of the region, that they needed to increase investment in repairing and replacing pipes.

Lower Hutt is a good example of the difficulties: It has 250km of pipes deemed to be in very poor condition. At the current rate of replacement, it will take 50 years to replace them.

A report to Wellington City Council this week said its drinking water network is “in relatively poor condition”, with more than 25% of Wellington’s pipes in poor or very poor condition.

A report to Wellington Water in August summed up the impact of so many leaks across the region.

“It is now probable that more severe water use restrictions, including total residential outdoor water use bans and potentially restrictions on internal usage within private properties will be required this summer and in the following years until major investments (in infrastructure) are completed.”