Another $1m for Wellington Water despite leak backlog fail
Wellington City Council staff signed off on an extra $1 million for Wellington Water despite much of the first cash boost going on cost blow-outs and delayed work.
As the city faced summer water shortages, the council agreed in December to give the water utility an extra $2m to get on top of 800 leaks in the current financial year.
The funding was broken up into blocks of $1m, with further funding released only once the first $1m was used and a list of where it was used was provided. The number of leaks to be fixed subsequently grew from 800 to 880.
A progress report from Wellington Water reached city councillors on Monday night showing it had fixed 148 of the 880 leaks. But with an average repair cost of $4641 per leak, it is only on track to fix about 430 leaks. Leaks repairs cost $1500 on average in 2021 but spiked at $4932 earlier in 2024.
The saga played out over the summer months as dry weather mixed with years of under-investment in pipes, and up to 41% of the city’s water being lost to leaks. It meant that there were chances of water outages or a regional state of emergency being declared.
Yesterday, Tim Harty, Wellington Water head of network operations and engineering, confirmed that the council had already approved the second $1m and the utility had secured contractors for the next round of work.
The increased cost per leak was partly due to some of the work being more expensive pipe renewals and having to work around other assets.
“The increased average cost is also a result of the fact that we’ve had to rely solely on external contractors for this work ... Standing up work like this quickly will always cost more,” he said.
Wellington Water planned to use more in-house workers in the future.
Wellington Water customer service general manager Kevin Locke told councillors the utility had planned to fix 162 leaks by March 24, but only made it to 148.
Councillor Tim Brown said the report highlighted the costs Wellington Water was “imposing” on Wellington City ratepayers, who were expected to get another big rates rise in 2025.
When told by The Post that another $1m had been approved, Brown said he would ask staff “how that could have been justified”.
Mayor Tory Whanau said it was her expectation that Wellington Water would fix as many leaks as possible with the money. “It is good to see the work picking up pace and efficiencies being made, but we know there is more work to do.”
Many councillors yesterday seemed unaware the extra $1m had been approved.
Ben McNulty said Wellington Water had made some good progress but work was “dramatically under where we need to be”. Approving the second $1m was a decision for council staff, he said when told it had been approved.
Nureddin Abdurahman said that given the city was in a water infrastructure crisis, the council should be giving Wellington Water all the funding it needed while holding it to account.
Diane Calvert said concerns about the cost of leak repairs were a “consequence of drip feeding insufficient funding by this council”.
Council spokesperson Richard MacLean said council staff had been authorised to release the extra $1m if satisfied with reporting and once the initial funding had been “fully utilised”. Wellington Water’s report showed it had spent $687,000 of the initial $1m by March 24.