Thousands of homes will be built in Hawke's Bay in the next 30 years but no more water will be allocated from the aquifer. Photo / NZME
While thousands of homes will be built in Hawke’s Bay in the next 30 years, there won’t be any extra water to go around.
The aquifers in the region — which is now suffering from near-perpetual summer water restrictions — will not be giving up any more water than they do today, and it’s unlikely councils will allow more to be taken.
In fact, the amount of water consented to be taken from the Heretaunga Plains aquifer — which helps feed Napier and Hastings’ water supply — could soon be almost halved.
The Tutaekuri-Ahuriri-Ngaruroro-Karamu (Tank) Plan has set an interim limit of 90 million cu m a year compared to the current consented limit of 160 million cu m a year across all water uses — rural and urban, residential and commercial.
The decision on the plan change is still subject to appeal to the Environment Court.
Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise said the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) capped the amount of water each city or council can take from the aquifer.
“They won’t increase it as our population grows, so we all need to get better at managing our water demand.”
HBRC’s subject matter expert said, in principle, Wise’s assessment of the situation was correct. The Tank plan did not mean water consents for residential use would be lowered.
“It is not prohibited for public water supplies to seek additional consented water based on growth, but only if they demonstrate that all other options have been taken.”
Wise said it was a big and important year for the city’s water services.
“Local Water Done Well will impact our future water delivery model and ability to fund upgrades, replacements and maintenance.
“Getting the community’s views on what form our new water services delivery entity takes is essential.”
The council had a comprehensive programme of work to improve the resilience of its water supply, including new water reservoirs on Mataruahou to increase available storage and replace the aged Enfield reservoir, new water bores and treatment plants at Taradale and Awatoto to provide higher available flows and compliant treatment systems, she said.
The council work included new rising and falling water mains to the main storage reservoirs, ongoing leak detection and repairs, new reservoirs at Mission Hills to allow for development, increasing storage volumes, and encouraging conservation.
“This is not a comprehensive list of all our activities, rather a snapshot of some of our more significant initiatives that are currently under way or being planned.
“When we talk about future-proofing our water network we are looking out 30 years with some projects and with others, even further.
“Mataruahou — our new reservoir — is scoped to provide for the Napier of 2080. With Taradale and Awatoto bore fields and treatment plants, we are looking at what we’ll need in 2050. Our future planning is based on an additional 2000 homes in the next 30 years.
“Our approach to water is multi-faceted. We have more than $100 million budgeted for water supply projects over the next 10 years,” Wise said.
A Hastings District Council spokesperson said new developments could not be successful unless there was the infrastructure (including Three Waters) to service them.
“It is important to note that inclusion in the Future Development Strategy (FDS) does not negate the need for all the normal planning and consenting processes.
“What it does do is indicate areas where applications and/or future long-term funding should be focused. As part of the process of identifying these areas, council has taken into account where current or new services can provide for development,” the spokesperson said.
While councils can monitor how much water households use every day, there’s no way in Hawke’s Bay, currently, of knowing how much of that water is wasted.
Napier council estimates leaks use 16% to 19% of its total water production.
A council spokesperson said leakage was calculated using a variety of data sources by experts in the field.
“But without water meters there is no way to calculate the exact figure,” the spokesperson said.
Hastings District Council is in the same boat. Its spokesperson said it could not measure essential and indoor use versus non-essential and outdoor use during water restrictions.
“However, significant increases between cooler and hotter times of the year would indicate an increase in outdoor use — most likely garden watering.”
A Napier council spokesperson said there was a multi-step process for dealing with complaints about people using water inappropriately under restriction levels.
When a complaint comes into customer services, a notice is sent to the address reminding the household of the water restriction rules, at whichever level Napier was currently at.
“If there is a recurring issue, one of the water team visits the address to check the situation and provides the resident with a letter outlining the council’s powers under the Local Government Act.
“Council can restrict a water connection by installing a restrictor that limits the amount of water available to the property.”
There have been just four letters delivered by hand in the last year and no restrictors installed in Napier.
Hastings says it initially tries to educate people, advising the water user that they need to abide by the restrictions.
On the Heretaunga Plains there is about 160 million cubic metres a year of water allocated to about 1400 consents in this area.
HBRC said water bottling makes up 2.5% of the total amount of water consented to be allocated from Heretaunga Plains Groundwater Quantity Area (i.e. 4 million cubic metres a year out of 160 million cubic metres).
The actual use levels from water bottling are significantly less than what is allocated, and accounts for less than 0.12% of the Heretaunga Aquifer Resource (data from HBRC website, last updated 2019).
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.