Reservoir faults add to water woes
A huge new reservoir that may have averted Napier’s water crisis has been sitting empty for months due to construction faults.
The water crisis occurred on Monday when Napier City Council informed residents the city’s reservoir levels were so low that it could run out of water that night unless water usage eased. Usage eased and water levels rose.
Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said residents had been using too much water. Over the weekend of December 2-3 they used just under 40,000 cubic metres each day, compared to the city’s average of 29,000 cubic metres a day.
Stuff can reveal that the city’s newest reservoir, its eighth, has been sitting idle due to construction faults.
The new Taradale reservoir, built alongside a similar sized existing reservoir, should hold 9200 cubic metres of water, and was supposed to have been completed by July last year.
But it was found to have a leaky roof and can’t be used because the risk of water contamination is too high.
Napier City Council’s director of infrastructure Jon Kingsford said the reservoir did not meet requirements set out in a contract with its builders.
Had it been operational by now ‘‘overall capacity would have been improved. However, demand was such that it may or may not have helped in these circumstances – and it’s difficult to guess at this’’, he said.
‘‘The reservoir should be available from around April 2018 pending successful completion of work by the contractor to meet contract requirements,’’ he said.
Another piece of work that may have helped avert the crisis, had it been completed by the intended date, was a new pipeline designed to deliver up to 400 litres of water per second into the city from a new bore.
The A2 bore at Awatoto is in place but the pipeline from it to the city, which was supposed to have been completed in June, is still being worked on.
Kingsford said completion of the project had been deferred pending completion of work on a water infrastructure plan for the council’s long term plan.
The pipeline was designed to provide more water to meet future demand, but Kingsford said it may not necessarily have helped avert the crisis.
‘‘Just adding bores at one end of the network does not help unless the network is configured to deliver the capacity to where it is required,’’ he said.
The new water infrastructure plan would replace an outdated plan and recommended a $22million investment over the next ten years to address growth and water quality.
New standards around bore construction following the Havelock North gastro crisis had also had a bearing on the delay.
The pipeline would be completed by February, Kingsford said.