Wellington’s water crisis should not have been allowed to get to this

Monday, 12 February 2024

Another water leak is tackled by a Wellington Water crew. City councillor Diane Calvert identifies long-running failings in Wellington City Council’s approach to the city’s water infrastructure, as the region’s crisis continues.

Diane Calvert is a Wellington city councillor.

OPINION: Over the past month, media, social commentators, industry experts, politicians and bureaucrats have waded into Wellington city’s water crisis. All fed up because the situation should never have been allowed to get to this extreme.

Wellington City Council has spectacularly failed to deliver one of its most important core services no matter how many “facts” are paraded out. Wellingtonians and visitors see their drinking water running down the city streets as they head out to work, sightsee, go to school, or walk the dog.

As a Wellington city councillor and advocate for putting more money into the pipes, I – along with some other independent councillors – have for a long time wanted to reset the city’s priorities and fix more pipes, faster. It looks like that time has finally arrived.

Decades of underinvestment have been blamed, with a plea for government assistance now. But that ignores why, over the past three years, this council hasn’t done as much as it knew was needed. It can’t blame ignorance, as the council conducted in 2020 two major reviews into the state of the city’s pipes and what action was required.

In 2021 Wellington Water Limited requested a total 10-year increased investment of 127.5%, based on 2018 figures, to fix and replace pipes.

Council officers advised, “it is not our preferred option because we do not yet have sufficient information to properly cost and direct our investment” and Wellington Water did not have “the ability to deliver such a large programme of work”.

Wellington city councillor Diane Calvert: “Quite simply, Wellingtonians will need to pay more for water to get the pipes fixed sooner.”

The council deprioritised the required investment by approving an increase of only 33%. That was against public feedback, which favoured higher funding and wanted the council to deprioritise other projects to fund more money for the pipes. The public was ignored.

Against a backdrop of more leaking pipes, a pandemic and unbudgeted extreme weather events, underinvestment has continued, along with inadequate depreciation collected, and deteriorating relationships.

Here’s a recent example. At the beginning of 2023, Wellington Water asked the council for an extra $10 million to repair more pipes – in addition to the main annual budget of around $45 million. The Mayor suggested $2.3 million, and the independent councillors wanted another $3.5 million, but the Mayor and rest of council said no – $2.3 million is enough.

Then mid-year, the Mayor offered another $2.3 million (making an extra $4.6 million in total). But there was a catch. The council wanted its own review of Wellington Water’s services, with the cost of the review funded from the pipe budget.

The review’s draft report was completed in August 2023, without the other Wellington Water shareholder councils’ involvement and was withheld from councillors. (It was only released to councillors and the public on February 1, also highlighting a number of areas where the council needs to improve).

In December, the council gave Wellington Water another $2 million towards the $10 million originally requested, but this time decided, at the last minute, to drip feed the money and the Mayor and some councillors asked for more reporting (a request based on hearsay from the report no-one had seen at that stage).

Quite simply, Wellingtonians will need to pay more for water to get the pipes fixed sooner. To help do so, the council will need to deprioritise other big projects, increase its focus on the pipes, and improve its relationship with Wellington Water and the other shareholding councils.

Beyond all of this, special mention and a huge thank-you must go to the frontline staff and contractors taking the calls and fixing the pipes. They deserve our support and are doing the best they can under a very difficult situation which is not of their doing.