Auckland’s ageing pipes: Watercare starts $3.5 billion ‘proactive renewal’ programme

Floating solar array on the oxidation ponds at the Watercare Rosedale Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Auckland’s Watercare will tomorrow start looking for businesses to partner with on the first half of a decade-long $3.5 billion programme to replace the city’s ageing water and wastewater pipes, and to upgrade its pump stations and treatment plants.

The Auckland Council-owned body is taking a new, collaborative, approach to large-scale projects and wants to make it easier for small-to-medium sized contractors to participate in them.

It also aims to up the participation of Māori businesses in the process.

The water and wastewater services company is releasing its request for proposal (RFP) to the construction industry tomorrow.

Watercare’s general manager asset renewals and upgrades, Suzanne Lucas said it would be Watercare’s biggest investment yet in “pro-active” renewal of infrastructure.

“There’s been a huge amount of planning just to get to this point, and we obviously still have a massive amount of work ahead of us to deliver this programme of work,” she said.

“This $3.5b programme includes the biggest investment we’ve ever made in proactive replacements of Auckland’s water and wastewater network pipes, which makes up about three-quarters of the overall programme.”

Lucas said Watercare had moved away from the traditional “fix it when it breaks” philosophy to a more strategic and proactive approach.

She said the programme would mean that customers can expect fewer leaks, fewer water outages and fewer wastewater overflows.

A confirmed works programme would make it easier for Watercare to plan and coordinate work with other agencies and minimise disruption by only digging up a street once, she said.

Watercare’s head of supply chain Stuart Bird said delivering infrastructure had in the past been on a project-by-project basis.

“So with our enterprise model we have cracked that a little bit,” he said.

Watercare had consulted the industry on its plans over the past eight months.

“There are significant benefits to adopting a partnership approach – both to us and the contractors we end up working with, who will be small to medium-sized businesses,” he said.

“For the industry it means the certainty of a forward works programme, which in turn gives them the confidence to invest in the right people and best technology to do the job.

“And for us it means more efficient delivery, improved quality and consistency and stronger relationships with our supply chain as we work together to meet our cost, carbon and health and safety targets,” Bird said.

“The traditional project tendering process consumes a huge amount of time – both at our end, and for the contractors hoping to get the work. It’s far more efficient to group the work into a five-year programme and have one intensive selection process.”

As part of this process, Watercare is setting up a Māori supplier network – a pre-approved list of relevant suppliers who can supply services including electrical, scaffolding, landscaping, civil works and plant or labour hire.

Watercare has a target to have 5 per cent of its total contract spend going to Māori businesses by 2025.

For the past financial year, the organisation’s spend with Māori businesses was 2.2 per cent.

Jamie Gray is an Auckland-based journalist, covering the financial markets and the primary sector. He joined the Herald in 2011.