Dam fine solution to Auckland’s water woes

Localised shortages and occasional droughts aside, water is an abundant commodity in New Zealand. To some extent this explains the traditional complacency over water security in many parts of the country. Forward planning has tended to follow the “just in time” approach with potable water supply just keeping ahead of normal demand, assuming normal rainfall patterns prevail.

Aucklanders might justifiably argue that Watercare and the council should have done better to avert what is a foreseeable water crisis.

Despite years of warnings from organisations such as Niwa, and a population set to exceed 2 million within the next eight years, there seems to have been little effective forward planning, including a safety margin for drought years and the impacts of climate change.

It seems incomprehensible that water permit applications for increased take from the Waikato River have been stalled in a log-jam stretching back seven years.

The usual critics attribute this failure to the Resource Management Act, but this is disingenuous. There has been a lack of urgency on the part of decision-makers; there are mechanisms in the RMA to “fasttrack” such applications. The Act provides that “proposals of national significance” may be “called in” by the Minister for the Environment to be decided more expeditiously by a Board of Inquiry, or by the Environment Court.

What qualifies as “nationally significant” is not prescribed in the Act, although relevant factors in determining this level of importance include the Crown’s “public health, welfare, security, or safety obligations or functions”.

Given that and other guidance within the Act, it seems clear that ensuring a safe and secure water supply to almost a third of the country’s population is without doubt a matter of national significance.

“Streamlining” provisions under the RMA, which allow a consent applicant to request their application be determined directly by the Environment Court could also be used. Tight time frames are set out that facilitate quicker processing of the application. Ensuring a secure water supply to the largest city in New Zealand is exactly the type of situation these provisions were designed for.

So far these comments apply to proposals to increase supply from the Waikato River — a source of water that requires considerable filtering and treatment to be made safe for consumption. Initially, the Waikato take was an emergency measure in response to Auckland’s water crisis in 1993-94. It now comprises over one-third of Auckland’s regular water supply. Auckland enjoys a maritime climate, which in normal climatic cycles produces an abundance of rain, most of which runs off into the sea. The better solution would be to increase the dam storage capacity in the Hunua and Waita¯kere ranges. Alternative solutions include expensive desalination, or unpalatable recycling of wastewater, which carries significant technical and cultural challenges.

But why would we go down that route when there is ample pure water available that simply requires expanded dam capacity? For a long-term solution we should be starting the planning, design and consenting processes to increase the capture and storage capacity within Auckland’s own region. In terms of the economic fallout from Covid-19, an essential infrastructural project makes a lot of economic, strategic and social sense.

Other solutions could include more aggressive measures to increase efficiency and sustainability of water use, although Auckland’s per capita usage is already the second-lowest in New Zealand.

Relaxing rules around installing water tanks in industrial and domestic buildings for flushing toilets and other non-drinking uses, introducing stricter water conservation and re-use rules in new builds, and even subsidising water conservation measures should all be part of a comprehensive and sustainable solution.

Even if the rain gods smile upon us over the next few months, we still have a longterm problem that needs to be addressed with urgency.