Half million-dollar fix for Napier's water

A number of improvements were announced for Napier's water supply after its second chlorination this year. Photo/File

Half a million dollars could be earmarked so the Napier City Council can deliver chemical-free water to residents.

At a meeting today the council will be asked to include an amended capital plan in its Annual Plan 2017-2018, which includes an additional capital item of $502,000.

This will relate to the council's additional focus on its potable water supply, and "to costs associated with changing industry expectation around public water supplies following the Havelock North Government Inquiry".

The spend would mean a rate increase of 1 per cent, bringing the total increase for 2017-18 to 4.9 per cent.

Yesterday Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said this item was "simply an acknowledgement that if people want chemical-free water delivered to their homes, then with the current testing regime we're going to have to upgrade our systems".

"It's an acknowledgement that it's just the reality of the world."

Napier's water supply is now in its fifth week of chlorination - this began after the supply tested positive for E.coli for the second time this year.

Costs set out in a document before the council included the creation of a new Drinking Water Quality Manager role, funding for additional maintenance tasks, and additional water testing - including the provision for additional water age testing, to fund the shift to enumerated E.coli testing, and additional water-quality testing over the business as usual level.

It would also fund a number of capital improvements to reduce risk of contamination to the water supply network, such as shifting bore head works above ground.

Some of these were included in the council's programme of work announced in response to the "high number" of recent transgressions - Napier's water supply has been chlorinated twice this year after positive E. coli readings.

The "comprehensive" programme of work would look at operations, maintenance and capital improvements, and would take several years to deliver in full.

A document before the council noted that a number of recommendations were expected from stage two of the Havelock North water contamination inquiry, which would require improvements to how drinking water supplies were managed across the country.

"We want to be ready for these changes and ensure we have learnt from the
experiences of others to ensure a safe drinking water supply for our community."

The second stage of the inquiry into the Havelock North water contamination began yesterday.

The council was not able to comment yesterday on whether this amount was expected to cover all the improvements stated, or whether any of this amount would be allocated to cover any additional costs for inquiry recommendations.

At tomorrow's meeting the council will be recommended to adopt the Napier City Council Annual Plan 2017-18.

The capital plan includes projects that have transferred from 2016/17. For the next financial year $51,260,000 has been budgeted to be spent under this programme.