Watercare’s two-year haul to recover from the weather emergencies

Auckland Council’s water company expects it to be years before it has completed repairs and upgrades following the two devastating summer weather emergencies.

Two big ticket items, Watercare’s Pukekohe and Muriwai Water Treatment plants, have uncertain futures and a host of smaller temporary repairs to its networks are still being prioritised for permanent fixes.

An early estimate of the cost of repairs was $250 million, but the company said that would depend on assessments still to be done, and be helped by an as-yet unquantified payout from insurance.

In the west coast beach community of Muriwai, where two firefighters died in a landslide and many homes remain red-stickered, Watercare said land stability meant it may never be able to reach the site of its local water supply and treatment plant.

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Watercare said it was still getting new reports of damage following the January 27 deluge, and Cyclone Gabrielle a fortnight later.

The most recent significant fault was a collapsed sewer line under the rose gardens in Parnell, which became apparent five weeks later, and has been fixed temporarily with a bypass pipe and a pump.

The water treatment plant at Pukekohe, which used to pump five million litres a week, has an uncertain future after being knocked out by significant flooding.

“If we were to rebuild, how do we increase height level (of equipment) again, is it the right set up, is it in the right location,” were all questions needing to be answered, said Suzanne Lucas the general manager of asset upgrades and renewals.

The future of Muriwai is a different challenge for Watercare where 211 dwellings are on its water network, with others self-sufficient on tank water, and the community’s destroyed water plant may be on condemned land, for good.

Watercare is bringing in water by tanker and pumping it into the local network, but a more permanent step is being considered for introduction near the end of March.

“The next step, an expanded interim solution, would be a temporary Treatment Plant, if the local (groundwater) source is sufficient,” said Mark Bourne, the chief operating officer.

The most pressing repairs were for 10-13 Auckland households without a functioning sewerage connection, and where portaloos are in place, until an interim fix allows life in those homes to return to normal.

The $250m early guess of the repair cost sounds major, but Watercare said it needed to be seen in the context of a 10-year asset plan of $13 billion.

The $13b plan is already supported by ongoing price rises unveiled in 2021, and the company said there was nothing yet to show that additional funding might need to be found.

“The question will be can we do both, (the existing plan and the repairs), or does something get deferred,” said Bourne.

In weighing up repairs, Watercare said it would also need to decided what should be repaired as it was, and what should be improved or upgraded to make the network more resilient.