Water meters in Napier homes would be a hard sell

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said household meters would be a hard sell for ratepayers. HBT17135002

For Napier Mayor Bill Dalton the issue of introducing water meters for the district would be something of a challenge — given the costs involved.

The installation of a water meter system had been looked into in the past but the estimated $7 million to $8m price tag would clearly make it a "hard sell for ratepayers", Mr Dalton said.

It would be a cost ratepayers would have to step in to cover and that would quite simply not go down well, he added.

At this time "water meters do not come into the equation," Mr Dalton said.

He said the road the council had gone down in the wake of the latest water shortage crisis had been an effective one — thanks to the very people its messages of restrictions and cutting back usage had been aimed at.

"We have told people they have to conserve water and they have — they need to be complimented for that."

Mr Dalton said the situation clearly reflected that people did not appreciate water until it had a value.

The threat of shortages raised that appreciation and people had reacted "superbly", Mr Dalton said, adding the early summer heatwave coupled with a dry November had sparked a situation more usual for late January or February.

"We hit four or five degrees above normal and bang — people used water."

"If they go back to water usage levels around the rest of the country then everything will be fine."

There will however be an introduction of meters in the city, but they will be installed as "zone" meters, Napier City Council director infrastructure Jon Kingsford said.

"So we can understand how water moves from different parts of the network within the distribution network as opposed to our main trunk pumping so that we can improve the calibration of our water network model which is under further enhancement.

He said that would enable council to better optimise decision making around renewals in water infrastructure, and capacity and level of service upgrades into the future.

Mr Kingsford said individual water metering happened in many places in New Zealand and could be used to inform water users of what their usage was.

He said the "extreme" of that was volumetric charging, but said the benefits of individual metering records was that it could provide a continuous feedback loop on what peoples' water usage was and how that related to the average, both within the city and even the national average.

Five major regions across the country have water metering installed which bills homeowners for the water they use.

Auckland, Whangarei, Tauranga, Nelson and Tasman.

Ten other councils meter homes across part of their jurisdictions.

Since the start of this year the Waikato District Council has installed 6000 water meters in Huntly, Raglan and Ngaruawahia.

Other councils include water use as a fixed portion of homeowners' rates bills.