Network upgrade at $15m

Timaru’s stormwater network needs an estimated $15 million upgrade if it is to meet strict new environmental standards and prepare the district for potentially damaging floods.

Getting there could take as few as five years or more than two decades and, whenever it happens, it will come with a jump in operating costs, Timaru District council figures reveal.

The council is poised to decide whether to spend all that $15 million over five years or to spread the load - and the cost - of an upgrade over more-than 20 years.

Some work is planned to start in the coming financial year but the years-long, overall spending strategy will be released for public comment in March.

It will be considered as part of the process to decide council’s long term plan (LTP), which details council spending priorities for the 2018-28 financial years.

Council staff have already identified the need to improve the district’s stormwater network as a key issue ahead of the public consultation phase of the LTP process.

A draft council discussion document says stormwater management systems need significant upgrading. The Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan, and the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management underpin the need for change.

Completing the work over five years, stating in the 2018/18 year, would would cost $15 million. Operating costs would climb by between $500,000 and $700,000 a year.

The council’s preferred option is to compete the work over 10-to-15 years, spending about $1 million a year. There would be a gradual increase in operating costs, to between $400,000 and $600,000 a year. The project would finish within the expected life of the council’s stormwater discharge consent.

It would mean some ‘‘real improvements of our environmental waterways while spreading the cost and, as a result, the impact on rates increases’’.

Spreading the project out over a longer period, spending about $500,000 a year over more-than 20 years, would further soften the impact on rates - but wold worsen the chance the system was out of step with regional and central government regulations.

The district’s community boards will discuss the proposed stormwater spend with other elements proposed for the council’s LTP this week.

LTP discussion documents also outline a proposal to charge people for the water they use, in a $15 million bid to avoid a $40 million spend to get more water from the Opihi River.

None of the proposed projects are officially part of the plan until they survive the consultation and political process, and are adopted.

The council’s current proposed budget for the 2018/19 year is for a 4.6 per cent rates increase, for a rates draw of $49.255m.

This excludes the cost of any of the additions to the plan. potential proposed