Further, despite potential savings due to increased bargaining power, tying the district’s Three Waters future to Timaru or the previously rejected Southern Waters group would leave ratepayers in a similar place cost-wise as in the district's re-buffed in-house plan, they were told.
Public details were released for the first time yesterday around the fledgling work on reforming the Waitaki District Council’s legally mandated water services delivery plan.
The original in-house plan was rebuffed by the government and former environment minister Amy Adams was appointed as a Crown facilitator for water to oversee the formation of a new plan.
Although Mrs Adams was not present at the council’s public workshop yesterday, council staff were able to show that a desktop review of council water assets had already been completed — stage 1 of a two-stage reassessment requested by Local Government Minister Simon Watts.
The workshop showed initial work was under way to assess if Waitaki could join a water entity with Timaru or the already approved Southern Waters grouping (of Gore, Clutha and Central Otago).
A Morrison and Low consultancy representative said at this point there were no savings to be seen for ratepayers, under either model when compared with the rebuffed in-house model.
However, under either of the joint options, Waitaki would be part of the South Island’s fourth-largest water entity, surpassing Invercargill City and the Waimakariri and Tasman districts in terms of population size.
That would be expected to bring more bargaining power to the table.
The workshop also revealed that potentially up to $8 million could be shaved of the original estimated costs of replacing water assets because it turned out the 100-year-old cast-iron water pipes were performing well, while the more modern polyethylene (PE) pipes were faring worse than thought.
The workshop reiterated the council’s long list of known failings in maintaining water assets, including long-standing boil-water notices, sampling errors and treatment plant upgrades.
Key issues included high rates of water wastage (up to 48% in Kurow), ongoing infrastructure improvements and regulatory changes requiring significant investment.
The council has 18 months to address those compliance issues, challenges ranging from nitrate levels and leakage to wastewater discharge requirements.
WDC infrastructure manager Joshua Rendell said it had been "just luck" the council had not already been taken to court for some of the issues, including at the Oamaru town water treatment plant.
"There was inadequate monitoring at the site, there was a sampling error, there was a missed sample and we were non-compliant," Mr Rendell said.
"We need to have robust systems that ensure that all of the sampling requirements are met moving forward, otherwise we’ll be litigated and that goes through to everything from having UV barriers in place, having the infrastructure in place as well as having the people undertaking the sample collection as well as getting appropriate variance and testing and so on and so forth."
He also pointed out discharges to the environment that were non-compliant with resource consents.
"Lots and lots of other councils have been litigated over these things."
