Auckland Council spending less on stormwater than it makes out

Extremely heavy rain in March caused flooding and left Auckland's water supply full of silt. Photo / Dean Purcell

Auckland Council has apologised for not giving the full picture on how much it spends fixing the city's old stormwater system and laying new pipes.

After a Herald Focus and Weekend Herald investigation in January found raw sewage pouring into the harbour every time there's more than 5mm of rain, the Herald asked the council how much it had spent on stormwater capital investment each year since 2010.

Its healthy waters general manager, Craig McIlroy, said on January 24 the council had spent $640 million since it was formed.

I will make sure in future when we give you that information we will make it quite clear where it fits in the overall pecking order

Craig McIlroy, Auckland Council

When the

Herald

questioned the spending again last week, McIlroy said the $640m included $229m spent by developers on stormwater assets vested to council. The developers' contribution was not broken out in January.

Today, McIlroy said if he misled the

Herald

in January: "I apologise, it was not my intention".

"The intention in January was to give you a total view of the stormwater investment, whether it was public or private. Now we have given you the additional clarification and what the split is.

"I will make sure in future when we give you that information we will make it quite clear where it fits in the overall pecking order.

"The main thing from my point of view is that our planning takes into account the total business needs, and the infrastructure gets provided by a mixture of effectively private and public investment," McIlroy said.

Retired merchant banker Dirk Hudig, of Stop Auckland Sewage Overflows Coalition, said disclosing gifted assets as council expenditure was a nonsense and misleading.

He said Auckland has a history of under-spending on stormwater and other underground services.

A 2011 council report found the city's stormwater network needed $5.4 billion to bring it up to scratch and $4.5b to support population growth over the next 50 years.

"The council needs to inform the public about what is required, how much is required to bring the system up to scratch and advise the public how they are going to do it and over what timeframe. The current expenditure is simply insufficient to fix anything," Hudig said.

In his first budget, Goff is budgeting to spend $103.2 million on stormwater this year, including $20m of stormwater budget brought forward from future years to help the system cope with bad weather.

The stormwater spending is less than 30 per cent of the $358m Watercare plans to spend on water and wastewater infrastructure this year. Hudig said the council should be spending more on stormwater than Watercare spends on water and wastewater.

The

Herald

investigation and extreme storms in March that silted up the city's main water supply led to calls for more action on water issues, particularly the role stormwater plays in harbour spills.

Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Stephen Selwood said council spending on stormwater was broadly in line with its own 2015 stormwater asset management plan.

But he said several reports over the past decade showed up to $10b needed to be spent over 20 years in Auckland just to address climate change risks and lift environmental performance to an acceptable standard.

"Compounding the problem further, Auckland's population growth is much higher than expected. While developers pay for the initial upfront costs of growth, the council inherits the assets and has to maintain them," said Selwood, who questioned if holding rates to 2.5 per cent might create liabilities for future generations.

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