Mayor says cities should prepare for worst at Y2K

By Keith Newman

Every mayor in the country will be in the hot seat if the lights go out at the stroke of midnight on December 31. It will then be too late to think about contingency plans, says Waitakere City Mayor Bob Harvey.

He says local authorities must prepare for extreme breakdown even though it may not occur.

"We have to bring our cities together and ensure order."

At a meeting called by Local Government New Zealand in Wellington this week, Mr Harvey will ask for greater level of disclosure and cooperation between councils and will encourage the Government to have the army and emergency service on standby in case the worst happens.

He says he is confident Waitakere will have its systems compliant, although there is still uncertainty about the impact of the leap year date in February 2000.

Mr Harvey also wants to know the readiness of Watercare Services and how it plans to cope holding 27 hours of sewage.

"At a given time that's what those pipes hold. If the chips fail, they have to open the gates and dump millions of tons of excrement into the Manukau harbour on a hot summer's day in the middle of January. If it fails, we're sitting on a major health hazard."

Mr Harvey plans to call a series of meetings with organisations and contractors supplying services to the council to determine their state of readiness. Between July and September he plans to gather volunteer workers from emergency groups, churches, hospitals, emergency services to devise a plan of action if things get rough.

"I want it so there's a huge team knowing clearly how to handle this."

He says the public haven't yet grasped the problem. "Our survival could depend on a computer chip. Who would have thought a chip could stop the water, power, communication and health networks."

Mr Harvey says people need to be aware there could be some problems, but there must not be panic.

He says some councillors, including in his own council, still believe Y2K expenditure to be a waste of money. Like many, he points to last year's power crisis in Auckland as an example of what might be ahead.

"Being sued will be the least of our problems, the buck will stop with the city fathers and mothers. The city hierarchy will be blamed. People will say, `you knew this was going to happen and did nothing about it'."

Waitakere City has budgeted $500,000 to beat the millennium bug. The money is being spent on extensive system and process testing as part of a comprehensive risk management programme mainly focused on areas of health and safety.

The project, named Wai 2000, continues to comb council operations looking for systems which could fail when the date turns to the new century.

The council has also demanded a warranty from suppliers of goods and services and the equipment they supply is Y2K compliant.

This includes financial, water and electrical services which are outside the council's control.

Project head John Brew says the council plans over the next few months to conduct extensive testing of all essential services in the city by progressively shutting them down and starting up again with the 2000 date in place.

Security, fire alarms and other services reliant on technology or embedded chips will be fully tested to ensure continued operation beyond New Year's Eve.

Fortunately the key areas which affect the city water, waste water and sewage are gravity-fed systems and the only processors involved are in the communications area which could disrupt monitoring. Once services leave the city they become the responsibility of Watercare Services.

Waitakere will work closely with other councils and over the next few months to ensure Watercare has appropriate plans in place.

Water supply is unlikely to be effected as there is sufficient storage to feed the city for an extended period.

The major uncertainly which could throw out all the best laid plans is the electricity supply. The council has been meeting with suppliers but cannot as yet get any guarantees the power will not go out.

"We are going through everything using a methodology set out by PricewaterhouseCoopers to work through and identify everything and prioritise areas of concern including dealing with mission critical areas and where necessary proving an appropriate work around."