Section 6: Council Activities

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Water

Responsibility

Brent Manning (Manager Water and Wastes)

Description of service

The service provides safe, affordable and reliable drinking-quality water to all customers within designated urban and rural water supply areas; with provision of fire-fighting capability within designated urban water supply areas. The service also provides an untreated raw water supply to specific industry (ANZCO) within Waitara.

This activity also provides additional water treatment capacity to enable a wider section of the community to have high-quality treated water reticulated to them through urban growth and the rural expansion programme.

The relatively low cost, quality and abundance of water supplies in the district is a strategic strength in attracting and retaining businesses and enabling urban growth for which water is a significant input.

Scale of service

This describes the size and scope of the activity.

Annual average of 35 million litres per day water production.
Current total abstraction capacity 74 million litres per day.
Four treatment plants (New Plymouth, Inglewood, Oakura, Okato).
18 water storage reservoirs (on 13 separate sites).
5 pump stations (Cowling Road, Veale Road, Tikorangi, Mangorei Road, Okato).
620km of water mains.
$200 million network replacement value.
27,887 total customer connections, of which 1,587 are metered and 546 are restricted flow.
89 per cent of district population serviced.

Rationale for activity

There is no express obligation in New Zealand legislation for local authorities to provide water services, although there is an implied obligation for them to do so. This implied obligation is derived from various provisions in the Health Act, Building Act and other legislation. The Council does have an obligation to provide for fire-fighting capability within its established urban water supply areas. Once a service is provided there are very strong restrictions on transferring control of the water supply or exiting the service or divestment of the infrastructure.

The inherent monopoly of water supply networks requires either public ownership or regulation to ensure that the community receives water at the cost of production, without monopoly profits being added to the cost to households.

The Council owns and runs water networks to ensure that public health is protected at low cost. The district’s water supplies are also designed to provide a high level of reliability in emergency situations.

The Council (and all public drinking-water suppliers) are required to comply with the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand 2005 (DWSNZ).

Water services contributes greatly to the community well-beings, in particular social and economic well-being. It provides a safe, healthy and efficient water supply at a relatively low cost for many uses including drinking and fire-fighting to over 80 per cent of the district’s population.

An assessment of water and sanitary services (including sewage disposal and solid waste) has been published as required under the Local Government Act 2002.Return to top

Contribution to Community Outcomes

Water supply primarily contributes to the Connected Community Outcome by providing a contiguous and reliable network from source to the customer. Water treatment and supply also makes significant contributions to the Sustainable, Prosperous and Secure and Healthy Community Outcomes by providing water at high-quality and low cost due to the economies of scale inherent in a reticulated system.

Connected

A district that delivers accessible and integrated infrastructure, transport and communication systems which meet the needs of residents, businesses and visitors.

C1 Effective, efficient, safe and reliable infrastructure is provided and maintained.

Negative impacts on community well-being

Increasing demand requires that more water is extracted from the environment. Given the normally high rainfall experienced in Taranaki this is not considered to be a threat to sustainable supplies or to the natural environment in normal rainfall conditions. Summer demand in dry periods needs to be managed to ensure that uptake of water from the environment remains within the limits prescribed by the resource consent.

Pressure management is being gradually introduced, to assist in demand management through a reduction in excess consumption and water losses.

Facing the challenges – assumptions and risks

Assumptions

Demand for water will increase in line with any increase in population, growth in tourism and the expansion of the urban area through subdivision.
Customer demand has previously led to a Council-approved expansion of the rural water network (2004-2014) where customers aspired to have the same quality drinking water as for urban customers. This aspiration of rural customers will remain.
Assumptions for asset base lives were made consistent with the Council’s certified valuation as at 30 June 2008. The following lives are assumed for the respective asset classes:
Reticulation and mains pipes, valves manholes: 80 years to100 years depending on the construction material.
Plant and equipment: Lives generally range from five years to 40 years.
Depreciation costs: Calculated for various classes of assets using their respective lives as indicated above.

Unit cost assumptions adopted are the same as used during the certified valuation as at 30 June 2008 and were determined with reference to latest contracts, construction projects and supplier information.

Risks

Network failure through deferred maintenance or reduced maintenance expenditure.
Changes to environmental standards, or significant change to current level of service, which may result in failure to achieve compliance or involve a significant cost to implement.
Stricter resource consent conditions, or reduced abstraction limits, on renewals on existing consents (e.g. New Plymouth Water Treatment Plant abstraction resource consent renewal due in 2021).
Contamination of raw water, which causes a significant public health risk to existing supplies.
Major drought that reduces the Council’s capacity to abstract water.
Possible loss of the infiltration gallery and water supply to Okato during heavy flooding of the Mangatete Stream.

Managing risks

Risks associated with water treatment plant and equipment can be reduced by regular inspection, up-to-date management and maintenance plans and the recruitment and retention of skilled staff.
Changes to standards can be managed by ensuring that the Council’s procedures and codes of practice are continually revised and ensuring the Council has input into the development of national standards.
Changes to consent conditions or limits can be managed by ensuring good communication with the regulatory authority (Taranaki Regional Council) while concurrently implementing a demand management strategy.
Raw water contamination can be mitigated by continuous monitoring of water quality and ensuring that emergency procedures and sufficient emergency storage are in place.
The impact of a major drought can be mitigated by imposing water restrictions if necessary, and by reducing peak demands in the long-term through better demand and pressure management.
Investigation and exploration into a possible groundwater supply is intended as an alternative to the existing surface supply in Okato. Return to top

Levels of service and performance measures

The following levels of service and performance measures outline the objectives we will set and how we will measure our progress.

Levels of service and performance measures

Asset information

Assets required

The diagram represents those infrastructural assets both currently employed and planned to be incorporated in service delivery for the water activity area.

Managing improved and/or expanded services

In response to the drinking water standards the Council will improve water treatment by:Return to top

Completion of Barrett Road Reservoir and trunk main for additional storage.
Ongoing process optimisation of all water treatment plants.
Improvements to the Inglewood Water Treatment Plant.
Possible addition of UV sterilisation to Inglewood water.
Investigations into groundwater sources for Okato.

Ongoing demand management through the following measures:

Pressure reduction to Inglewood urban supply.
Pressure management by zones (to be introduced) to the New Plymouth urban supply areas.
Provision of restricted flow type supply only to all new rural connections.

Funding

Only people using the system pay for it. Direct operating expenses such as maintenance, energy, staff and chemical costs are paid from the current operating revenue collected from uniform annual charges, water by meter charges, and restricted flow tariffs.

Uniform Annual Charges (UACs) charge average cost, so that users who have similar consumption characteristics are charged the same. As most costs are fixed the costs of providing water to similar users does not vary greatly, so having all similar users paying the same fee is fair and administratively efficient.

Industrial, commercial, and rural customers are charged for water supply based upon the actual volume of water supplied to them, through either metered consumption or annual restricted flow tariffs. For uses other than normal domestic consumption, the supply may be metered by the Council. Around seven per cent of the total number of connections is either metered or restricted flow type.

Large capital expenditures for quality or capacity improvements may be funded by loans so that their costs can then be spread over time. In this way current and future users of the system pay for their use of the system. The loans are serviced and repaid from UAC and water charges revenue.

Managing change

Current demand growth to existing supply areas is two per cent per annum. This will be accommodated by the following additions to our existing capacity:

Investigations into the need for, and feasibility of, groundwater bores at Okato to augment or replace the existing surface supplies.
Planning for new infrastructure in order to service those growth areas identified in the Framework for Urban Growth.
Ongoing expansion of the rural network.

Maintenance, renewal and replacement of assets

Existing water assets will be maintained, renewed and replaced by Council staff and external contractors according to the specific service lives of the component parts of the system and as described in the Water and Wastewater Asset Management Plan (WWAMP). The Council’s asset management plans can be viewed at the Civic Centre, Liardet St, New Plymouth at any of the libraries and service centres at Bell Block, Inglewood or Waitara or district libraries.

Maintenance expenses are funded from the targeted rates (UACs) and water charges used to fund all water supply operating costs.

Asset renewal and replacement expenses are funded from depreciation reserves.

Depreciation reserves are calculated annually as a percentage of the total asset value, and are funded from operating revenue (UACs and water charges). This means that only those using the services pay for their upkeep.