Lessons to be learned from Lake Hawea's upgraded water system

Lake Hawea

How an upgraded water system for Hawea failed to deliver what was needed is to be discussed in detail by the Queenstown Lakes District Council, after a commissioned review found various issues with the project's management.

Council general manager property and infrastructure Peter Hansby said everything from the initial decision-making and design through to commissioning and operation of the Hawea Water Supply capital expenditure project had been reviewed by an independent reviewer.

The system was upgraded in 2016 to improve water pressure and flow in the township, but test results to measure the flow and pressure at certain points of the water supply did not match modelling and "were not what we'd expect to see''.

Mr Hansby said that raised a question of whether there would be problems during peak demand times or when growth started to happen.

Contained in a report to the council's infrastructure committee, meeting tomorrow, are 14 recommendations for the council, particularly regarding how a large-scale project should be managed, with an emphasis on the need to ensure infrastructure spend is "right-sized'' to ensure it functions correctly.

The recommendations include that there should be a clear delineation of design responsibilities, "with an understanding that council will not be self-performing the role of designer for capital projects''; that council staff are adequately trained and experienced; and that they have an appropriate amount of time to complete the tasks required of them, in consideration of the number of projects or tasks they manage, plus the complexity, criticality and value of their projects.

The commissioned report, specifically outlining the issues with the project, was not attached to a committee agenda and will be discussed at tomorrow's committee meeting.
Mr Hansby said some of the issues addressed in the report were already being dealt with by the council, which had since implemented a detailed business case model to ensure projects were properly planned, managed and executed.

Conducting a review of an infrastructure project was quite common in the commercial sector and local government "but the difference here is we've said we've got some stuff wrong, we need to talk to the community about that, and they need to understand here is what we're doing to improve them''.

The only additional cost to the project so far had been the flow meters "but once we fully understand the modelling and the growth side of things it may be that we have to do some more work to the water supply to ensure we can be competent around those peak areas''.

It was not clear how much had been spent on the project so far.
kerrie.waterworth@odt.co.nz