Mayor sceptical of huge water bills for Upper Hutt

Wednesday, 7 February 2024

Upper Hutt is the home of the Te Mārua storage lakes, which can provide Wellington with up to 45 days’ water in a dry summer.

Mayor Wayne Guppy is not backing down from his criticism of Wellington Water and is sceptical of advice showing that Upper Hutt faces some huge water infrastructure bills.

Documents released by Wellington Water under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act show that Upper Hutt needs to massively increase its investment in three waters infrastructure. The city is currently losing 52% of drinking water to leaks.

Guppy has been in the news after his council was called out by Local Government Minister Simeon Brown for not supplying material regarding its plans to deal with the pending water crisis.

Both Guppy and Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau had received letters from Brown calling them to a meeting to explain why their councils had not responded to his requests.

“Wellington Water is spending ratepayers’ money and as a mayor its is my responsibility to make sure ratepayers’ money is being spent responsibly,” says Upper Hutt Mayor Wayne Guppy.

The redacted documents provided to The Post spell out the size of the challenge facing Upper Hutt and the need to invest heavily in its three waters network - drinking water, storm water and waste water.

In October, prior to a meeting with councillors, the council’s director of asset management and operations warned Wellington Water that the message to councillors would have to be kept simple.

“I am talking to council next week about levels of investment infrastructure renewals. This is being pitched at a very low simplistic level trying to illustrate our level of investment is too low.”

Replacing assets with a “known failure history” or in poor condition over the next 10 years would cost Upper Hutt $447 million.

Improving the quality of drinking water, storm water and waste water services to the “maximum deliverable” level would cost $771m over 10 years.

Upper Hutt had 269km of pipes needing to be replaced over the next 30 years, which worked out at 8.99km a year. In 2022/23 it replaced 1.65km.

The view from Riverstone Terraces, Upper Hutt. Residential growth is booming but there are questions over whether Upper Hutt has the infrastructure to support it.

The cost of replacing the pipes has been estimated at more than $500m.

Renewing Upper Hutt’s three waters network has an estimated long term cost of $1.5 billion.

Documents presented to councillors at a workshop described the “scale” of the three waters investment needed as “significant.”

Upper Hutt’s water assets are ageing faster than they are being renewed and, like other cities in the region, it will have to deal with acute water shortages over coming years.

LIke other cities in the region, Upper Hutt needs to invest heavily in water infrastructure.

Upper Hutt is growing rapidly as a city and councillors were warned they had to invest in the future to safeguard that growth.

“Without investment to support growth, Upper Hutt will face drinking water pressure and storage shortfall, waste water overflows and flood hazards.”

The investment needed over the next 30 years to support growth included new reservoir storage facilities, pipe upgrades upgrading the Silverstream waste water overflow storage tank, and dealing with legacy flood issues to reduce the risk of residential flooding.

Guppy told The Post that he stood by criticism of Wellington Water and remains sceptical of the advice provided in the documents.

The $1.5b figure to renew assets was a long term estimate and Guppy doubted its accuracy.

“Wellington Water can’t predict 10 years out, let alone that far ahead.”

Those doubts also extend to Wellington Waters’ claim there are 269km of pipes needing replacement.

Before the formation of Wellington Water, Upper Hutt had done its own pipe inspections, which he noted Wellington Water had discontinued.

He rejected the suggestion that rather than being antagonistic towards Wellington Water, he should be working with it to find a solution to the water crisis.

“There is nothing antagonistic about it, Wellington Water is spending ratepayers’ money and as a mayor its is my responsibility to make sure ratepayers’ money is being spent responsibly.”