Water regulator warns crisis will repeat, demands plan from Wellington Water

Tuesday, 12 March 2024

The country’s water regulator says it’s not confident Wellington Water is doing enough to prevent another water crisis next summer.

In a letter to Wellington Water and the region’s five councils, Taumata Arowai chief executive Allan Prangnell asked Wellington Water to provide a plan that showed steps it would take to mitigate this shorter term risk.

Record high water use, water loss through public and private pipes, and changing climate conditions were key contributors to the current water shortage, Prangnell said: factors that were unlikely to change next summer.

“We are not confident that [Wellington Water’s] operational plans or broader council investment decisions will be adequate to prevent the current acute water shortage risk from happening again next summer.”

The Post had previously reported the crown entity was considering declaring a water emergency in the region, after failing pipes and repeated leakage forced the area to go on level 2 water restrictions.

“As population growth, network asset deterioration and climate change continue to add further supply and demand stress, the risk of future water shortages seems likely to increase,” Prangnell wrote.

He said a “step change” appeared to be needed from Wellington Water and councils to remove the risk to drinking water supply in the future, starting with next summer.

It was not viable for emergency powers, and exceeding resource consent limits, to have to be considered as part of regular summer management of Wellington metropolitan drinking water supply.

“The use of emergency powers should be reserved for situations where extraordinary events occur, or factors affecting supply could not reasonably have been anticipated or modelled. That does not appear to be the case here.”

Wellington Water had identified ways it was working on reducing the water shortage risk in the medium to long term, but Taumata Arowai wanted a clear plan for mitigating the risks this coming summer.

Not all risk could be eliminated, and there was a balance between short term needs, such as accelerated fixing of leaks, and longer term requirements such as network renewals, he said.

The letter gave Wellington Water the deadline of March 8 to provide the plan, but a Wellington Water spokesperson said the deadline had been extended to Friday March