Former mayor’s water calls dismissed as ‘gold plated’

Saturday, 20 January 2024

It was more than 30 days before this leak on Lambton Quay was fixed.

A former Wellington mayor says her calls to improve water infrastructure were dismissed as ‘’gold plated’’.

Dame Kerry Prendergast, who was mayor from 2001 to 2010, said during that time successive councils had determined that a 15% loss of water was acceptable.

“I used to think that was pretty bad because Auckland was at 14%,” she said on Friday.

“Every year, our head of infrastructure would come and tell us which pipes needed to be replaced to make sure we didn't have too much water loss.

“Because I lead the support for that, there were councillors who would accuse me of gold plating the pipes.”

Today, that number has spiked to 40% and, in November, Wellington Water started to communicate dire warnings about the city’s water supply, initiating their ‘’our wai can run dry’’ campaign.

Former mayor Dame Kerry Prendergast believes there has to be a national solution because the cost is beyond most councils and ratepayers.

Adry summer forecast combined with the city’s chronically leaking infrastructure meant Wellington Water was already starting to dip into stored reserves.

Wellington Water’s chief adviser for potable water, Laurence Edwards, said in November that this summer’s weather conditions were expected to be very different to the last.

“We've got El Nino conditions predicted, which is a change from the last few years,” he said. “That meant more westerly winds resulting in potentially dry conditions. We can't rely on a tropical cyclone coming in and dumping a heap of rain … We're just going to have to see what comes.”

The region is now under Level 2 water restrictions. Wellington Water said on Thursday the probability of the region heading to Level 3 restrictions had reduced from 76% to 60%. Level 4 restrictions had also reduced in probability from 33% to 23%.

Prendergast said that not long after she left her position as mayor, the degradation projection of the pipes was changed.

“What that means is if an engineer comes and says ‘we think this pipe only has a 30- year life’, you depreciate it over 30 years.

“The only way subsequent leadership and councils could release money for their other projects was to delay the change of the pipes. So they'd say ‘well, we think that pipe would last for 50 years’. So what you then saw was a gradual underinvestment in the city's water infrastructure.”

Former mayors Justin Lester and Celia Wade-Brown, who led the city between 2010 and 2019, have previously claimed councillors had been misled about the extent of the problems with the ageing pipe network.

“It’s embarrassing for Wellington, it’s embarrassing for Wellington City Council, and it’s doing Wellington’s reputation considerable harm,” said Lester, the city’s mayor from 2016 until 2019, blaming “gross failure of local government management”.

Leaks still plague the city’s roads and footpaths as residents are banned from using outdoor sprinklers

Prendergast said water meters needed to be brought in to Wellington but that the best hope for a permanent fix lay with central government.

“There has to be a national solution because the cost is now beyond most councils and ratepayers.

“We cannot go back to a situation which initiated the work on Three Waters, where you have places like Havelock North and Hastings with E. Coli in the water causing a whole lot of people to get sick, and some dying because of it.”

Wellington mayor Tory Whanau empathises with residents sick and tired of the constant leaks

Current mayor Tory Whanau posted a message on LinkedIn on Friday saying Wellingtonians were “sick and tired of leaky pipes”.

“This problem has built up from decades of underinvestment in our underground pipes. While there are no easy fixes, our council is committed to getting on top of this.”

Whanau said the council was spending $74m on drinking water alone ‒ more than double the investment of a decade ago.

“As we plan our budget for the next 10 years, I am committed to increasing our investment in water even further. Along with transport, water will make up the largest chunk of WCC’s budget in the years ahead.”

Whanau also noted that just before Christmas, the council approved an additional $2m in extra funding for Wellington Water to fix as many leaks as possible over the coming months.

The amount of water lost is roughly 76 million litres a day, thanks to 5000-plus leaks from the region’s pipes.

The council last estimated it would cost between $2.2 billion and $4.5 billion over the next 30 years to bring the below-surface infrastructure up to scratch.