Water infrastructure in need of catch-up funding
As Christchurch residents are implored to play their part in the just-launched summer water conservation campaign, concerns are escalating about the evercreaking state of the city’s water infrastructure.
As The Press reported earlier this month, the amount of water lost in Christchurch through leaks, breaks and faults within the city’s network has billowed by 33 per cent in the past two years.
In the past financial year, 20 per cent of the city’s reticulated water supply was lost in leaks, far exceeding the council’s own leakage target of 15 per cent.
But the council is adamant that even if we achieved a zero leak rate, it would still launch summer conservation campaigns, when demand for water is at an extreme and the network is pushed to its limits, particularly in the early evenings.
The council’s head of Three Waters, Helen Beaumont, tells me that ‘‘during peak demand, people use water faster than we can pump it into our reservoirs, leading to pressure losses in the network’’.
‘‘That said, network leakage is a concern, and we are prioritising our pipe renewals programme to address this.’’
I canvassed the views from a range of city councillors.
Yani Johanson sums it up best. ‘‘It’s hard to convince citizens to save water when the council is failing to meet its level of service targets to fix the leaks.’’
Cr Aaron Keown bluntly claims the leaking has got so bad, ‘‘they now need to conserve to make up the balance’’.
Cr James Gough decries the failure to get the fundamentals right as a dereliction of duty.
‘‘You don’t get much more fundamental than having your water infrastructure network up to scratch.’’
Cr Pauline Cotter, who chairs the Three Waters Infrastructure Committee, concedes that ‘‘there’s been an element of underinvestment’’.
Cr Sam Macdonald argues that far too much of the half a billion dollar annual capital budget has been frittered away on non-core projects. ‘‘We have accepted continual cost blowouts on projects like the Town Hall.’’
Macdonald is rightly calling for baseline funding for three waters and roading.
‘‘We need bottom lines which say we need to invest ‘x amount’ to ensure we aren’t going backwards. Had we done this, we could have avoided these years of neglect.’’
No-one disputes that the council’s capital budget has been under colossal pressure, whether it be the enormous investment in the well-heads programme or in honouring its obligations under the Anchor Projects cost-share agreement.
But the council has also opted to expend megabucks on over-sized cycleways and the proliferation of pools and libraries.
Nor did it embark on partial asset sales.
In a searing reality check, Beaumont confirms that since 2010, ‘‘the investment in the water supply network has been approximately a third of that required to maintain the standard of the network. As a result, 14 per cent by length or 26.2 per cent by cost of the water supply pipe network is in ‘very poor’ condition. The leakage is increasing as a result.’’
We need bottom lines which say we need to invest ‘x amount’ to ensure we aren’t going backwards.
Beaumont reveals that, based on the latest recalculated estimates, 375km of water mains and 110km of sub-mains are in poor or very poor condition. The council also factors in the ‘‘failure rate’’ of pipe breakages to formulate its renewals workstream.
Based on that, Beaumont is signalling that in the 2022-24 period, 311km of network mains and submains need to be renewed, at a cost of $150 million, while between 2025-27, a further 221km of renewals will be required at a cost of $ 176.7m.
So how many years could it take for the council to play catch-up on water infrastructure to get its house in order, factoring in the ability of the qualified contractor base to deliver?
Beaumont is proposing the best-case scenario is to increase current budget levels by 15 per cent per year.
‘‘This pattern would see water supply infrastructure up to date by approximately 2033. It would see wastewater pipes up to date by 2040 and stormwater pipes by 2048.’’
The estimated figure, solely for the replacement of pipes due to their condition and breakage rates over the next 30 years, is over $2 billion.
Increasing the capital budget allocation so extensively will be a central narrative in next year’s Long Term Plan.
But it’s got to be done.