Rotorua's geysers have recovered so well from their decline of the 1980s that officials are looking at allowing more private use of geothermal heat again.
Consultants at Industrial Research are due to present an initial report to the regional council, Environment Bay of Plenty, next week on a range of
scenarios for loosening the strict controls imposed on private geothermal bores 18 years ago to save the geysers.
Council scientist Dougall Gordon said the controls, which included a ban on all private bores within 1.5km of the famous Pohutu geyser, had stabilised the field.
"We have Pohutu bubbling away 90 per cent of the day. We have reactivation of features in Kuirau Park which had been dormant since the 1970s."
Principal environmental consents officer Brett O'Shaughnessy told the Geothermal Association's annual conference in Taupo the total geothermal heat flow in the Whakarewarewa field had dropped from 21 megawatts in the 1960s to 14MW in the mid-1980s, but was now back up to 19MW.
"We are now getting to the point where we believe the field is starting to stabilise at the upper level," he said.
Reinjection of steam back into the ground after being used for heating had increased from 5 per cent before 1986 to 92 per cent.
"The remaining 8 per cent are in parts of Rotorua where it's physically dangerous to reinject."
