Samantha Motion: This should be the year of water

The Ngongotaha Stream is at its lowest in many years. Photo / Andrew Warner

OPINION

The fragility of the supply of fresh, clean water many of us take for granted seems increasingly evident in recent weeks.

The blanket of ash thrown over much of Tonga by an immense eruption, as well as the ensuing tsunami inundation, has left the islands' drinking water supplies in peril.

It's a reminder of the need for infrastructure resilience against sudden natural disasters, as well as the creeping crises of climate change and sea-level rise.

For farmers, mental stress is rising with every passing day without any significant rain, as reported on Saturday.

Underground water resources were getting low, and tough calls were being made to feed out expensive silage or go to once-a-day milking.

Rotorua streams with their headwaters in the Mamaku Ranges recently moved into the first alert level of a Water Shortage Event, more analysis and monitoring.

The Ngongotahā Stream reached its lowest recorded flow, for this time of the year, since records began in 1975, while two waterways Tauranga draws on for city supply, the Tautau and Waiorohi streams, were at 25 per cent and 63 per cent respectively of average flow.

Then there's the toxic algae blooms and wastewater spills and long-term unswimmable spots.

Residents of Tauranga and the Western Bay have household water use restrictions, now a summer norm, as their councils plead for a community effort to conserve water.

Some locals find this request offensive and believe any lack of supply reflects a lack of action and planning from councils and government.

I found Tauranga City Council's water conservation behaviour change campaign this summer somewhat galling, as it seemed to be unaccompanied by any ideas for supply alternatives to relying on stressed streams.

Houses are being built, the population is growing, and NZ's fifth-largest city does not have enough water every summer so we're putting buckets in the shower and browning off the lawns.

Never mind a new stadium, thanks, Rotorua's got a good one and so does Hamilton. Fix the water.

The Government's Three Waters reforms will be one of the main issues candidates chew over in the local elections later this year.

But if that debate focuses on a power struggle between stubborn factions of local and central government, rather than what water solutions communities need and who/how/when to best deliver them, then the most urgent point will have been missed.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sometimes gives years nicknames - the year of delivery, of vaccination. She declined to dub 2022 and invited others to do so.

I say this must be the year of water.