Tim McCready

Infrastructure: Proposals that hold water (NZ Herald)

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Suggestions for reform could impact on local councils, reports Tim McCready.

Figures released last month in a Ministry of Health report show one in five New Zealanders are drinking water from water supplies that don’t meet current drinking water standards.

The report shows larger suppliers — including Auckland’s Watercare, Wellington Water, and Dunedin — are meeting compliance standards throughout the year. But many smaller communities are failing to comply, including some of New Zealand’s most iconic tourism destinations: Coromandel, Whangamata, Waitomo Caves, Tekapo and Milford Sound.

In the 2016 outbreak of gastroenteritis in Havelock North, an estimated 5500 of the town’s 14,000 residents became ill with campylobacteriosis and 45 were hospitalised. It was ultimately traced to contamination of drinking water supplied by two bores — with sheep faeces being the likely source of the pathogen.

The Havelock North incident raised serious questions about the safety and security of New Zealand’s drinking water, and sparked a Government Inquiry into the outbreak.

The inquiry made 51 recommendations to improve drinking water safety — including that all water supplies should be treated, and that a dedicated drinking water regulator should be established.

Speaking at the Local Government New Zealand annual conference last month, Minister for Local Government Nanaia Mahuta said:

“The findings of the Havelock North Inquiry have been a sobering reminder of how, for the sake of our communities, we must make sure that drinking water services are high quality and safe. Too many areas across the country do not meet drinking water standards; in smaller areas, the level of compliance drops to less than 50 per cent.”

A shift to dedicated providers
Stage two of the Three Waters Review was launched in March, and is considering how to improve the management of drinking water, stormwater and wastewater.

New Zealand’s three water infrastructure and services are primarily owned and delivered by the 67 territorial (district and city councils) and unitary authorities, or council-owned and controlled water organisations (in the case of Watercare and Wellington Water).

Accountability for overall service performance is through the local government election process. In theory, if the public is unhappy with the performance of their council they will elect new councillors. But in reality, most members of the public do not have the information, capability, or desire to effectively monitor service outcomes. In many cases — including Havelock North — it is not until things go wrong that the public find out the extent of the problem.

The Havelock North inquiry recommended moving to a system of aggregated, dedicated water providers. A Three Waters public discussion document released by Internal Affairs asks what the options for a new model might look like:

Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Stephen Selwood says scale really matters in the water business, because as well as enabling economies of scale, it provides the revenue base to maximise skills capability and capacity to govern, fund, oversee and operate water service delivery effectively.

“The value of scale and capability is already being clearly demonstrated by Watercare and Wellington Water who have between successfully implemented significant improvements in services in their regions that were not previously possible under local council management,” he says. “I favour a small number of providers, from one to to five. One provider like Scottish Water with independent regulation has proven very successful. With one provider you would look to benchmark performance with international comparators like the Australian states. Between three and five providers provides the opportunity to benchmark across NZ companies as well.”

Mahuta, who recently returned from a research trip to Scotland and Ireland to consider the models used there, says there are no pre-determined solutions, but a bottom line is continued public ownership of existing three waters infrastructure.

“Any option must ensure continued public ownership of existing infrastructure assets and we must provide the protections of that assurance through governance and ownership arrangements, at law and ministerial oversight,” she says.

Mahuta says it is critical the Government works closely with councils, iwi, and stakeholders with an interest in three waters services to develop options and recommendations.

How the overhaul will be paid for remains unclear, and Mahuta has acknowledged funding challenges: “Climate and population change alone mean that, even if we address the challenges in front of us now, significant funding pressures will continue to arise for decades to come.” Selwood says it should pay for itself, citing Scottish Water as an example:

“This publicly-owned national water service provider delivers drinking and wastewater services to five million people across an urban and rural hinterland comparable to NZ.

Since formation in 2002, Scottish Water has delivered substantial improvement in water quality, environmental performance and customer satisfaction, while reducing operating costs by 40 per cent and capital costs by 20 per cent on an enlarged capital investment programme.”

One of the main challenges with reform of the water sector will be the impact on local councils. For smaller councils, water is a significant component of their responsibilities.

Removing these raises questions about future viability.

Says Selwood: “I think this provides an opportunity to refocus councils from managing utilities and engineering challenges to being more focused on their communities, their people and giving true meaning to local engagement and participation by people in local affairs.”

Sector deficiencies

Successive reports over the past two decades undertaken by a diverse range of agencies and organisations (including the Office of the Auditor General, Water New Zealand, Engineering New Zealand, Infrastructure New Zealand, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and the Local Government Infrastructure Efficiency Expert Advisory Group) have pointed to serious deficiencies across the sector. Between them, these expert bodies have compiled a compelling case for change.