Water May/June 2023

A vision for the generations

The responsibilities of protecting source water

Nature-based water management solutions in our cities

Preparing coastal communities for change

President: Lorraine Kendrick

Board Members: Helen Atkins, Troy Brockbank, Fraser Clark, Tim Gibson, Lorraine Kendrick, Priyan Perera, Dr Deborah Lind, Shelley Wharton,

Chief Executive: Gillian Blythe

Water Group Co-ordinator: Katrina Guy

Membership Administrator: Pip Donnelly

Technical Manager: Noel Roberts

Technical Advisor: Nicci Wood

Insight and Sustainability Advisor: Lesley Smith

Training Development Manager: Belinda Cridge

Communications Manager: Debra Harrington

Design and Marketing Coordinator: Ranya Adolf

Executive Administrator: Amy Samuelu

Bookkeeping and Administration assistant: Zoe Hubbard

OUR SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS

Backflow

Climate Change

Smart Water Infrastructure

Modelling

Onsite Waste Water Management

Stormwater

Water Service Managers’ Group

WeCan

Young Water Professionals:

Chapters in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

For information contact: Katrina Guy 04 495 0891, email: Katrina.guy@waternz.org.nz

WATER JOURNAL

Editorial: Mary Searle Bell, Contrafed Publishing

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Design: Jonathan Whittaker

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Distribution: Pip Donnelly, enquiries@waternz.org.nz

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DISCLAIMER: Water New Zealand reserves the right to accept or reject any editorial or advertising material submitted for publication. The opinions expressed in contributions to Water are not necessarily those of Water New Zealand. The information contained in this publication is given in good faith and has been derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, neither Water New Zealand, nor any person(s) involved in the preparation of this publication accept any form of liability whatsoever for its content including advertisements, editorials, opinions, advice or information. This extends to any consequences from its use. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or ink–jet printing without prior written permission of the publishers.

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REGULARS AND COMMENT PIECES

16

‘Ka ora te wai, ka ora te whenua, ka ora nga tangata’

‘If the water is healthy, the land is healthy, the people are healthy’

It’s time to be visionary and recognise the true value of water

Lorraine Kendrick President, Water New Zealand

The Government’s recent reform reset has shown how it will need to steer a very delicate course in order to establish the 21st century fit-for-purpose water services delivery improvements we all know are desperately needed.

The scale of the challenge and cost of the solutions may be yet to fully resonate with many people in our communities. As a sector we need to support any moves that would lead to a more informed discussion. Our infrastructure deficit was decades in the making, and will require decades to fix, especially when compounded by the need to mitigate and adapt to climate change. And it won’t be cheap.

Around the country, the parlous state of infrastructure is starting to hit home as broken leaking pipes, wastewater overflows, closed beaches, unswimmable rivers, and our lack of resilience against flooding makes almost daily headlines.

Climate change, increasing storm events and drought and the growing realisation that we’ve been building in the wrong places and that costly engineering solutions and disruptive ‘managed retreat’ will become an inevitability.

Yet we do have an opportunity to move forward and get it right this time. As a sector, we need to be visionary.

What do we want the water sector to look like by the middle of the century? What are our career pathways? How do we ensure our water is valued and used efficiently? How do we give effect to Te Mana o te Wai? Then there’s compliance and enforcement along with integrated and spatial planning and so on.

Recently, Water New Zealand held a series of workshops, ‘Water Sector in 2050 – establishing a transformation vision’, around the country aimed at not only creating a visionary picture, but also how to get us there.

The key message we’ve heard from these has been the need to value water and to shift from regarding it as a commodity to instead, recognising its true value as the precious taonga that it is.

Genuine kaitiakitanga, or guardianship, will require a big shift in mindset in many sectors. As the water sector, we need to help set the course for a more sustainable long term water future and to continue to promote understanding of its true value.

The need to address the infrastructure deficit, and to find a new funding model is understood. I hope that the Government’s recent decision to increase the number of new water services entities from four to 10 will address concerns and put us on a path to better economies of scale, attract much needed specialist staff and provide career pathways.

As an organisation, Water New Zealand will continue to play a pivotal role in bringing the sector and other groups together because the issues facing us are becoming more urgent and we cannot continue to kick them down the road for future generations to deal with.

Ka kite anō

Lorraine Kendrick President

If your interest is water, don’t miss this important conference.

Don’t forget to mark your calendar – great earlybird deals and awards nominations open in June Find

Latest state of the environment report released

A comprehensive assessment of New Zealand’s environment shows improvements in some areas, but continued reduction in many aspects of environmental quality, with consequences for human health and wellbeing, according to the state of the environment report Environment Aotearoa 2022 released mid-April.

The report, produced every three years by the Ministry for the Environment and Stats NZ, draws on nearly 50 environmental indicators, including 11 updated specifically for the report.

Environment Aotearoa 2022 found pressures of land use change and intensification, pollution, invasive species, and climate change were having detrimental impacts on the environment. New Zealand’s rare ecosystems and indigenous species are under threat with 94 percent of reptiles threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming extinct, and nearly three-quarters of terrestrial birds threatened or at risk.

The area of highly productive land that was unavailable for agriculture increased 54 percent between 2002 and 2019. Our climate is warming, glaciers are melting, and sea-levels are rising. Air quality is improving slowly at a majority of measurement sites, but in many places pollution levels are above the new WHO 2021 guidelines.

The report notes evidence on increasing frequency of short-term droughts in some places, with flow-on effects to other parts of the environment and human endeavours.

“Environment Aotearoa 2022 relates environment change to human wellbeing,” said Ministry for the Environment secretary for the environment, Vicky Robertson.

“The report brings together a wide range of information to give us a broad picture of the health of the environment. Wellbeing is linked to a healthy, functioning environment.”

Environmental indicator data underpinning the report comes from local and central government, crown and independent research institutes, industry associations, and in a small number of cases, international sources.

“Environment Aotearoa 2022 is a synthesis report, drawing together previous reports, the latest environmental indicators, and peerreviewed scientific literature,” said Stats NZ government statistician Mark Sowden.

“The report has been rigorously examined by

scientific and statistical experts, ensuring that the information is accurate and trustworthy. The independence of the environmental reporting programme is critical for ensuring the trustworthiness and credibility of environmental reporting.”

Vicky says the report’s primary purpose is to provide New Zealanders with the evidencebased information they need to consider in any decisions about their environmental impacts and New Zealand’s future direction.

The report follows closely in the wake of the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report and comes ahead of the planned release of New Zealand’s Emissions Reduction Plan and draft National Adaptation Plan.

To read the Environment Aotearoa 2022 report, go to environment.govt.nz/publications/ environment-aotearoa-2022/

Water reform reset provides greater certainty for long term improvement

Water New Zealand says the proposal to create 10 new regionally-based water services entities provides certainty after weeks of signalling changes to the reform programme.

In a media release issued shortly after the announcement, chief executive Gillian Blythe says that relative to the current model of 64 water services providers, reducing the number of entities to 10 will provide for better economies of scale and investment as well as opportunities for a more skilled workforce.

“We’ve known for a long time that we need to turn around decades of under-investment in our water infrastructure and we need to do it in a way that is affordable.

“As well as the huge investment needed to upgrade infrastructure, there are major challenges that we need to address, including managing growth and climate change adaptation and mitigation.”

She says the announcement means that the water sector can get on with the job of improving water services delivery.

“I’m optimistic this reset provides a pragmatic

and affordable way forward.”

Gillian also says that the longer we leave investing in our water infrastructure assets, the harder and more costly it will become and the renewals backlog will grow.

However, she says that she is comforted by the unanimous acknowledgment that the current funding model is not fit for purpose.

“I will feel more comfortable when opex and capex budgets lift across the country, we see a step change in water service delivery outcomes, and the workforce grows both in size and skill sets.”

Mission accomplished for the NPR

The end of an era has arrived with the release of the 14th and final National Performance Review by Water New Zealand. Since 2008, the review has provided an overview of the performance of the country’s water supply, wastewater, and stormwater networks.

Its stated goal: “publicly confirming the standing of the [water services] industry and the value delivered from public investment in those assets”. With information in the 2021/22 review showing New Zealand’s water, wastewater, and stormwater network is valued at over $50 billion, and comprised of over 100,000 km of pipe, the mission is accomplished.

From next year, performance information will be covered by Taumata Arowai regulation as part of new Network Environmental Performance Measures. Water New Zealand has been collaborating with Taumata Arowai to ensure that the learnings and foundation established by the review are transitioned into the regulatory regime.

Over the years the focus for the NPR has been to provide data and analyses to guide decisions looking to improve the overall performance of the water sector.

To mark the final year of reporting, this year’s NPR provided not only an analysis of recent year trends, but also drew on data provided in previous years, which over its life included 60 of the country’s 64 water service providers.

Key issues addressed in the 2021/22 report include:

• Growing water abstraction volumes which could be countered with demand side measures.

• Expenditure on stormwater networks trailing that of water supply and wastewater networks.

• Water charges that are hugely variable outside of our main centres.

• Weaknesses in environmental regulation of water and wastewater networks.

• The growing water sector workforce with lots of opportunities.

• Health and safety performance trends that are a cause for concern.

• Action needed to ensure adequate maintenance of water supplies for firefighting.

Performance indicators on the 33 water service providers who participated in this year’s review are available via interactive publicly available dashboards. Information covers assets, public health and the environment, resilience, reliability, customer focus and economic sustainability.

Whether you’re a water industry professional, policy maker, or concerned citizen, the Water New Zealand National Performance Review will provide you a broad overview of water sector trends, or comparative performance information. Report and dashboards can be found at: waternz.org.nz/ NationalPerformanceReview.

National Performance Review 2021 2022

Stormwater conference keynote speakers announced

Stormwater 2023 is about stewardship of water. How we value water and our environment, about holistically planning catchments for people, land and water, and how we give effect to Te Mana o te Wai. We know we need to be adaptive and embrace new ways of working and thinking to ensure healthy, safe, and sustainable communities, and habitats. A highlight of this year’s conference will be our keynote speakers who’ll be sharing their valuable insights into how we can ensure safe and healthy environments across all of the country.

executive director special projects at Watercare in January 2022.

Andrew is responsible for the reform preparations and transition activities within Watercare and the Healthy Waters department of Auckland Council.

Kieran McAnulty

Minister of Local Government, Emergency Management, Rural Communities, Racing and Deputy Leader of the House MP for the Wairarapa electorate, Kieran was sworn in as a minister in 2022 and has previously been the chief government whip.

Kieran says he believes it is fundamental to who we are as Kiwis that we have sustainable and strong rural communities supported by Government in recognition of their importance to our economy, society and identity as a nation.

Kieran is proud of his deep roots in Wairarapa – his family has lived there for over 170 years since his great-grandmother’s great-grandfather, Henry Burling, arrived as the first settler in what is now Featherston.

Chief resilience officer at City of Rotterdam and lead cities at Global Centre on Adaptation As deputy head of the Rotterdam Water Management Department, he was responsible for the Waterplan2Rotterdam. In 2008, he was appointed manager of the Rotterdam Climate Proof programme.

Arnoud is first editor of the book ‘Resilient Cities and Climate Adaptation Strategies’. He was responsible for Rotterdam’s first Resilience Strategy in 2016, and joined the Global Centre on Adaptation part time in 2018.

In 2019 he hosted the Global Urban Resilience Summit in Rotterdam and joined the Global Steering Committee at the Resilient Cities Network. Last year he coordinated the development of the ‘Resilient Rotterdam Strategy 2022-2027’.

Ecology at the University of Manchester.

He is committed to engaging with researchers, practitioners and communities to generate real world impact concerning new forms of spatial development, risk management, and climate change adaptation.

Iain has led or co-led more than 20 research projects and he is currently leading teams of researchers in the National Science Challenge: Resilience to Nature's Challenges, and the MBIE Endeavour project ‘Reducing flood inundation hazard and risk across Aotearoa New Zealand’.

He is the author/co-author of over 50 articles and books, and his research has featured in many news and current affairs stories.

Andrew Chin

Healthy Waters

strategy manager at Auckland Council and executive director special projects, Watercare

Andrew is a chartered engineer and chartered environmentalist with more than 20 years’ experience in three waters infrastructure in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Since 2011 he has been working for Auckland Council in the Healthy Waters department.

Andrew has a dual role in preparation for water reform as the head of Healthy Waters Strategy at Auckland Council and he was appointed as

Before joining Waikato University in 2013, Iain was director of the Centre for Urban and Regional

Te kaiurungi/chief executive, Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki. She also holds governance positions in private and charitable entities. Jada’s recent roles as tumu maiaka or GM people experience at Tāmaki Regeneration and as social outcomes manager in the Central Interceptor programme for Watercare Services have given her in-depth experience in marrying infrastructure programme deliverables with mana whenua aspirations and outcomes.

She has lived and breathed the RMA, MACA, stormwater management plans, the Heritage Pouhere Taonga Act, and has ensured iwi involvement in the decision making that impacts their whenua.

Jada’s current portfolios include supporting the delivery of commercial outcomes for the iwi charitable investment trust, as well as delivering environmental improvement through kaitiakitanga, revitalisation of te reo and tikanga Māori.

Jada MacFie

Arnoud Molenaar

Iain White Professor of environmental planning, Waikato University

Modelling Symposium a record breaker

By Wioletta Gilfoyle, Modelling Group chair

The record-breaking number of abstracts, workshop submissions and sponsors as well as the high attendance at this year’s Modelling Symposium reflects the growth and power of modelling and the increasing recognition of the importance of hydraulic modelling for a sustainable water future.

Seventy modellers from around the country got together in March for this year’s Modelling Symposium. The theme, ‘Modelling for an uncertain future’, attracted a wide range of presentations on the future needs of modelling in the water industry, including case studies.

Presenting provides a great opportunity to showcase work organisations are doing to help drive a reliable water industry.

The symposium started with a keynote address from Josh Richardson of Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities on creating a framework for climate resilient public housing.

Kāinga Ora has been reporting climate related disclosures since FY22, and this will be a mandatory requirement from FY24. The disclosures identify the physical and transition risks which will affect Kāinga Ora customers and assets in the short and medium term (up to 30 years) if the climate mitigation or adaptation obligations set out in Kāinga Ora’s governing legislation are not met.

International speaker Jeff Smithers, from University of KwaZulu-Natal, presented on The National Flood Studies Programme for South Africa – an overview and development to date.

Jeff’s presentation highlighted the challenges that modellers are facing, including declining hydrological networks, length of records, missing data, flow gauging limitations, limited research capacity and other issues.

National Urban Stormwater Modelling Guide and Rain Radar Data for Modelling workshops were held, as well as a site visit to the recently-constructed Omāroro Water Reservoir.

The Modelling Group’s mission is to raise awareness of the importance of hydraulic modelling to plan a sustainable water future.

Hydraulic modelling covers a wide range of aspects, including asset surveying and field investigations, data management, hydrology and hydraulics, infrastructure planning and strategies, concept design, risk management, decision making processes, community and stakeholder engagement, working with the research community, project and team management, and more.

Many local authorities utilise hydraulic models to help inform their decisions for both day-to-day operations and future planning.

For operations, the hydraulic models are used to identify potential areas of concern and to provide an understanding of how the system behaves under a variety of scenarios and how it reacts to operational changes.

For growth planning, the models are used to identify areas of required network upgrades and improvements due to future developments and intensification. These may include new reservoirs, pump stations, detention tanks and other key infrastructure.

Models support decisions on investment to reduce flood risk, by helping to identify areas that may be affected by flooding and enabling the assessment of the mitigation measures.

The papers presented at the symposium and in the local events reflect the wide range of models’ uses. The topics covered in the presentations cover a broad range of topics across three waters modelling, from water network resilience, modelling coastal erosion, groundwater and hydraulic structures, through to urban stormwater, flood and morphological river modelling.

As well as the symposium, the Modelling Group committee has been busy planning and organising events and further opportunities for modellers for 2023.

In February, we hosted a joint event with Smart Water Infrastructure and Stormwater Group in Hamilton, called ‘Transforming the water industry’.

The presentations from this event are available through Water New Zealand education and training sessions. This includes a speech from the winner of the 2022 5S Water New Zealand Young Water Professionals conference attendance award winner, Melissa Alfrey, and a case study highlighting how the existing stormwater hydraulic models could be used to predict damage.

Papers from these events and information on future events will be advertised through the Water New Zealand website and Group’s LinkedIn channel.

Further information on the Modelling Group can be found on the Water New Zealand website: waternz.org.nz/Modelling.

waterdirectory.org.nz

This is a must-attend event for backflow professionals.

Keep up to date with latest advancements in technology and practices. Listen to experts exchange knowledge and take part in thoughtprovoking discussion. Tickets

This conference gives you a unique opportunity to expand your knowledge, network with peers and industry leaders, and further your professional growth and development.

Join us for two days of learning and knowledgesharing, designed to deliver practical, relevant and cutting-edge information.

“The

is gold

identifying suppliers”

Showcasing water at career stands

By Belinda Cridge, Water New Zealand training manager

Recognising the importance of awareness of water careers, Water New Zealand is attending a range of fairs and expos aimed at university students, school career advisors and science teachers. We kicked off our activities in March with a pop-up stand at the Auckland University STEM expo.

Every year, the universities around the country have careers fairs for their students around March and April. The aim is to showcase careers and employers to current students.

The fairs are well attended with over 400 students estimated to have attended in Auckland. The bulk of these were engineering students as the event was housed in the redeveloped Engineering School.

Our staff were aiming to showcase the range of careers available in the sector through posting current job advertisements on sticky notes and

matching students to open positions. This helped students see where the opportunities were, how their qualification aligned to the water sector and where to look for job postings.

We were also able to direct students to aligned stands from Watercare, Downer, Stantec, Hynds Pipes, and others.

Students were very keen to find out about cadetships and internships, so Water New Zealand will be investing in setting up a central database to help promote opportunities offered by our members. We will also be looking at other opportunities to support members and their recruitment.

Coming up in the pipeline we have events at SciCon (to reach science teachers and understand partnership opportunities), career events at Canterbury and Otago Universities, and the CATE Career and Transitional Educators conference.

If you would like to partner or support our activities please contact training@waternz.org.nz.

Wellington YWP networking event a success

The Young Water Professionals (YWP) Wellington chapter kicked off the year with a highly-anticipated speed networking evening in March. The event was brimming with energy and enthusiasm as young professionals in the water industry converged to meet new colleagues and share stories.

The group says the night had an impressive turnout and a lively, fast-paced atmosphere that kept everyone engaged.

There were some great conversations and opportunities to learn more about the vast array of opportunities in the industry.

YWP is thrilled to have hosted such a memorable event and is keen to organise more in the future, and asks its more senior members to encourage YWPs to participate in these worthwhile opportunities.

YWP would like to thank Cuttriss Consultants and ProjectMax for their sponsorship to help make this evening such a success.

YWP Wellington chair Rumana Sayyad

A transformative water vision

Water professionals took the opportunity recently to brainstorm their vision for the sector in 2050 and the milestones along the way. Run by Water New Zealand, four workshops were hosted around the country with around 400 delegates from across the water service sector. Suppliers, contractors and consultants, and service providers came together with the chief executives of the new entities, drawing together a broad depth of knowledge from across the sector.

“The events were sold out well in advance with a waitlist but for those who missed out, we will be ensuring further opportunities for our members to contribute to this important work,” says Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe.

She says the conversations to date have already traversed a broad range of topics and it’s been pleasing to see such enthusiasm for what might be possible.

“It was great to meet local experts and to have the opportunity to discuss the future of the water sector.

“We’ve a lot of challenges between now and when the new entities are established but it’s equally important to keep focused on the

Are

transformative vision for water services over the next 30 years to ensure the reforms set us up for the future.”

At each of the workshops, attendees broke into small groups to workshop ‘World Café’ style on key focus areas for the sector including, Te mana o te Wai, climate and the environment, capability and education, people and community, digitally enabled, and more.

Through high level conversation and ideation, each group explored what outcomes we should have achieved by 2050 and how we might get there.

“We’ve captured the feedback and will be pulling the ideas together for a draft report. We will be socialising the draft with the sector to ensure we have successfully interpreted the milestones needed to make a positive, transformative difference.

“Regardless of whether you attended the workshops, we’d be keen on your feedback”.

A briefing document is available on our website. If you have any feedback please email Nicci.Wood@waternz.org.nz.

Get the tools you need for change

By Dee Sims, Water Reform National Transition Unit

Moving three waters services from councils to publicly-owned water services entities (WSEs) is one of the most ambitious and complex transitions ever undertaken in our country. As part of this transition, the Government’s Water Reform National Transition Unit is overseeing the transition of approximately 4500 water services staff from their current organisation to their new entity.

Few people will be affected by this more than the current water workforce.

Change can be challenging. When change happens, it’s normal to feel a wide variety of emotions, ranging from negative to positive, or anywhere in between. We all need to learn how to cope with change effectively and get the right tools to navigate it.

Our water workforce is currently on a pathway of significant change as we move towards a new system of water services management and delivery. The Water Reform National Transition Unit (NTU) has been created to establish new council-owned water services entities (WSEs) through a consistent and coordinated nationwide approach to transition.

The NTU is committed to ensuring that the transition is efficient,

effective and minimises disruption to local government organisations, staff, and communities, as well as to consumers.

For water sector professionals, the structural changes we are implementing will create the conditions to build and sustain a highly skilled and adaptable workforce that can innovate and collaborate to drive outcomes for the country.

Organisations of scale enable new training and career pathways, including in research and development, as well as the ability to actively develop a more inclusive and diverse workforce.

While this destination will be of benefit to all New Zealanders, we understand that the road to get there might feel challenging.

To support the water workforce through transition and prepare people for their new roles in the WSEs, the NTU has developed a Change Readiness training programme, which rolled out in April 2023.

The Change Readiness training programme is free for both staff and senior leaders in local government organisations (LGOs) working in, or supporting, water services.

NTU learning and development specialist Stevie Winikerei says that this programme is all about supporting the water workforce as they navigate through the reform process.

“We all deal with change, both in a professional environment and in

our personal lives, and we all react to change differently. Our Change Readiness workshops, Tools for Change and Leading Through Change, are the first two modules available in Stage One of the programme.

“We’re equipping the workforce and its leaders with practical tools to navigate change themselves, and to lead their teams through change.

“The workshops give insight into different ways people think, how we can influence within a change environment, provide a change management framework, and allow participants to apply new understanding in managing responses for a positive change journey.”

On top of getting the tools you need for change; Stevie says the workshops are a great opportunity for professional development.

“You’ll build on your knowledge and skills, and there’s also massive benefit in using consistent change language throughout each organisation and across the country.

“The more people who take part in the training, the easier it will be for everyone to be on the same page about the change journey we’re all going through.”

The workshops are fun and engaging, with not a dull PowerPoint presentation in sight, promises Stevie.

“The first thing people can expect is to have a good laugh. You’ll be out of your chairs, engaging with your colleagues sharing both good and bad change stories, and reflecting on how you think about and manage change.

“Each participant will receive a workbook where they can take notes and develop actions that can be used immediately to support them through any situation.”

Stevie says that feedback from attendees has been positive.

“People have told us what they’ve learned isn’t just about the water reform. The feedback has been that people feel they now have a set of skills to help them with change in their daily lives as well as at work.”

Tools for Change and Leading Through Change are available now, with further modules planned to include Career Coaching for senior managers and a Te Mana o te Wai e-learning module.

Stevie says the NTU has also started to design training workshops aligned with the systems that will be used by the new WSEs.

“Our programmes will continue right up to the time the WSEs become operational, and potentially beyond.”

Bookings for Tools for Change and Leading Through Change are filling up fast.

“If you’re an LGO leader and you want to book your team in for training, please reach out to us as soon as possible so that we can deliver. All we need is to agree on a date and a time and we’ll come to a location near you. We have a team of experienced, passionate, facilitators who are ready and excited to lead.”

To find out more about the NTU’s Change Readiness training and to book a session, email Stevie Winikerei, stevie.winikerei@dia.govt.nz.

Growing up in Waimauku, in rural northwest Auckland, Andrew was not encouraged to follow in his farming father’s footsteps. Instead he was encouraged to head to university to study engineering.

“I think my dad wanted to be an engineer but on returning from serving in the war in the Pacific, he had few choices, and farming on a small dairy holding was a tough life. So he encouraged me into professional engineering.

“After finishing at Kaipara College, I headed to Auckland Engineering School to study electrical engineering. It wasn’t really me though, so I transferred to the University of Canterbury to do agricultural engineering, now called natural resources engineering.

“My studies piqued my interest in soil and water engineering, and of course wastewater. It just clicked.

“It was a co-joint degree with Lincoln University, studying both living sciences and civil engineering subjects – very appropriate fundamental knowledge for on-site wastewater engineering.

“I guess my rural background came into play here: one of my regular jobs on the farm as a youngster was shovelling the cow manure from the farm-dairy holding yard at the end of each milking.”

Andrew’s first job after graduating was with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Canterbury, where he joined the Farm Advisory Extension Services as an assistant engineer in the early 1970s.

“That got me into farm wastes, and I took 18 months off to do my Master’s thesis on the rheology of dairy shed waste. After a day of lab experimentation, the lingering odour of dairy manure was not generally appreciated at the dinner table.”

He transferred within the ministry from Christchurch to Hamilton for a couple of years before he was approached by Lincoln University in 1978, who asked him to join the faculty. He agreed, and spent the next 21 years based at Lincoln, researching and lecturing on soil and water engineering, which included wastewater engineering.

While the engineering degree he taught into was part of a coop BE Natural Resources degree with the Faculty of Engineering at

Canterbury, he was based at Lincoln University.

“In 1998, the way universities were funded was overhauled and our degree was transferred across to Canterbury. This prompted me to leave academia and set up my own engineering consultancy, ecoEng.

“I focussed my professional service predominantly on small-scale domestic wastewater projects.”

In his 21 years as a consultant, Andrew’s work involved engineering design, risk assessment, compliance processing, and project management.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of domestic wastewater designs – probably a couple of thousand over the years. And I have also been involved in participating in customised short courses for on-site wastewater management both here and in the South Pacific.”

His ability to do both training, thanks to his years as a lecturer, as well as design meant he was often called up to work in the Pacific to address sanitation issues on various islands.

“I have really enjoyed working alongside the different practitioners on wastewater projects, including technology suppliers, installers, regulators, servicing technicians, and so on – and although I came from a background of theory, being involved at the frontline was where I learnt most about the diversities and complexities involved in the design of fit-for-purpose on-site wastewater management.

“Wastewater management involves a wide range of sciences, engineering principles and technologies, along with the essential social and cultural issues and values. I love the challenges of that and the insights I have gained in my time.”

Andrew says he has seen substantial changes in the industry over the past 50 or so years, and says there are a lot of challenges at the moment for the different providers of on-site wastewater management systems (OWMSs) and their components.

“The culture of practice within the OWMS industry evolved from the time when landowners were simply required to install a septic tank (with no filters) discharging into either a soak pit, a simple trench, or sometimes into a farm drain. Tank manufacturers across the country seized the opportunity to become the key providers for on-site wastewater management.

Andrew Dakers

“The introduction of the Resource Management Act, then the first publication of TP58 – the On-site Wastewater Systems Design and Management Manual, and later the first OWMS joint standard (AS/NZS1547:2000), ushered in a requirement for a much higher standard of service from regulators and providers of OWMSs.”

Andrew notes that while there are some countries that allow discharge of treated wastewater from OWMS into stormwater drains or surface water bodies, provided it is treated to a high enough standard, here we are not permitted to do this, and the treated wastewater must be discharged into or onto land.

To mitigate the potential risks created by land application, competent system design and appropriate technologies are required.

“Every site is unique. While we can buy a range of ‘treatment tanks’ off the shelf, we can’t buy OWMSs off the shelf.

“Every fit-for-purpose OWMS needs to be designed specifically to the risks and amenity needs of each site. This places considerable responsibility on OWMS designers.”

Andrew says, today, our on-site wastewater management industry is being challenged by the growing awareness of the significant health, environmental, and cultural risks from poorly managed and/or designed OWMSs but also the increasing population in non-restricted rural and peri-urban areas.

“In addition, researchers are discovering an increasing range of emerging contaminants in domestic wastewater from the wider use of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and different household products.

LOW CARBON CONCRETE

It’s now more important than ever to have resilient infrastructure assets to protect our communities against the elements.

Hynds can now contribute to both sides of the equation with it’s new low carbon range Hynds LC.

Consider the impacts for your next project

“Furthermore, we are clearly moving into a time of climate change with the increased risk of flooding, raised groundwater levels, and soil erosion, all of which may impact on the performance of an installed on-site wastewater management system.”

Andrew explains that there are several different key players in the OWMS provider team, from treatment plant manufacturers/ suppliers, OWMS designers, installers, regulators, the servicing technicians, and the operators (e.g., the homeowner). Ideally, all need to play the game in accordance with the same rules.

“We can find these rules in the formal standards (particularly AS/NZS1547:2012) adopted by Building Code and most regional rules. And all players should have a sound working understanding of the rules of the game. In my experience this not always the case.”

Andrew says there are about one million New Zealanders reliant on OWMSs, spread right across the country.

“While diverse and widely distributed, collectively, this is a very significant physical infrastructure service to a significant number of citizens.

“It is a challenge for OWMS providers and regulators to be consistent across the country, and it is not helped by the fact there is very little government or other funding supporting research, training, and component performance testing.”

While Andrew muses whether having a national standard would help, he is clear on what will: “We need visionary industry leadership and funding for appropriate and targeted high-quality training of the key providers of OWMSs”.

Fast learner, skilled operator

The 2022 Trainee of the Year Award was hotly contested, with the judges saying all three top place-getters were inspiring. Here’s runner-up Jonathan (Jono) Meredith’s story. By Mary Searle Bell.

Jono started his career as a labourer for Downer, doing general construction and sealing work and the like, before spending a couple of years driving trucks. He was lured back to Downer to work on its Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) project, installing fibre around Central Otago.

By the end of the project he’d had enough of the travel involved with the work so, when he saw a role as a wastewater operator advertised internally, he took the opportunity to switch departments.

“When I began two-and-a-half years ago, I knew how sewer and water mains worked, having worked around them with the UFB project. But, while I understood the reticulation side of things, I didn’t know anything about wastewater treatment.

“I started learning the role by working alongside a co-worker, but before long, I was responsible for about eight of the wastewater treatment sites that Downer looks after for the Southland District Council. They’re not big and are mostly settling ponds.

“However, we took over the care of the Edendale Worm Farm about six months after I started and it has become my baby – I probably spend about 25 hours a week at that site doing maintenance, testing, and generally ensuring it’s running properly.”

The Edendale/Wyndham WWTP was one of the first worm-based sewage treatment systems in the country and its BioFiltro system uses tiger worms to break down organic waste.

Jono says he also looks after pump stations: “There’s about 2530 I keep an eye on and my co-worker has about the same. We’re pretty busy.”

To complement his work out in the field, Jono started studying. He completed his Level 4 wastewater treatment certificate in just six months – and it would have been even faster if Covid restrictions hadn’t delayed his assessment. Currently he is two-thirds of the way through a National Diploma in Wastewater Treatment.

“Once the information is in my head from the block course, I like to get the papers done.”

His dedication and stellar performance in his role have not gone unnoticed by his training assessor or by his boss at Downer.

After completing a New Zealand Certificate in Wastewater Treatment, with a strand in Multistage Processes Level, Level 4, his assessor, Martin Simpson, talked to his manager, Murray de Groot, and suggested he put him forward for the Trainee of the Year Award at the 2022 Water New Zealand Conference & Expo. Martin agreed.

“Jono is one of four wastewater operators on the Southland District Council contract, which covers one of the largest geographical areas

of any contract within New Zealand,” writes Murray in the award application.

“Jono has learnt about 19 separate wastewater networks and associated pump stations in a short timeframe… [He] has brought with him some great skills from his previous role in UFB, especially from the mechanical and technological aspects.

“He has picked up the servicing of pumps, screens, and the telemetry operation extremely quickly and, with his willingness to learn, he has good knowledge of the treatment science.

“Within a couple of months of starting as a Wastewater Treatment Operator, Jono was performing the role as if he done it his whole career, learning the essentials of the contract quicker than anyone else we have ever had.

“The Edendale/Wyndham WWTP is a vermiculture process, which is a difficult plant to manage, and has had some compliance issues in the past. But since Jono has taken over as the operator, the performance has significantly increased and you can guarantee compliance any day of the year, and this is an absolute credit to Jono.”

While the Southland District geographical area is very large, the Downer team servicing the council’s wastewater facilities here is very small – Jono is one of just four operators, one of which is based permanently on Stewart Island. This means he is on-call every third week to cover night-time issues.

“It’s a big area,” says Jono. “I probably drive 250-350 kilometres every day.

“I love my job, the only downside is being on call. When you’re on call you’ve got to be good – you can’t have anything in your system, and you can’t go fishing.

“We don’t actually get called out very often; I’ve only had one or two callouts since Christmas.”

Murray has also been impressed with Jono’s dedication to his studies.

“Increasing his formal training has always been a self-driven priority for Jono. The learnings that he has achieved over such a short space of time are exemplary and have been a win for Jono, Downer, and our client.”

For Jono, however, he simply enjoys his job.

“I like to be hands on as much as I can, I don’t like being stuck in an office.

“One of the best things though is we get to manage our own workload – we work out what we need to do for the week, then go out and get it done.

“Yes, we do have a schedule we have to follow, but we can prioritise our work. And if one of us needs a hand, we work it out between us. If we need more help, we can go up the chain.

“We have a pretty good crew.”

Jono was unaware he was being nominated for the Trainee of the Year award until the process was well underway and he says it came as a bit of a shock.

He was unable to make it to the Gala Dinner where the winners were announced as the timing clashed with the first block course for his Level 5 diploma. Nevertheless, Murray was there, and was chuffed to be able to phone Jono and tell him he had been named as runner-up – a close second, according to the judges.

“I was pretty stoked.

“I enjoy what I’m doing, so I’ll stay doing it for a while.”

Nature based solutions in our citiesaccelerating change in complex environments

By Stu Farrant, ecological engineer at Morphum Environmental

Recent weather events have more than reminded us of the need to reconsider how our relationship with urban water needs to better reflect the risks posed by a changing climate. Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle and the ‘atmospheric river’ that dumped over Auckland provided a dramatic wakeup call around the increasing threats of large flood events. Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, extended dry periods and infrequent downpours ratcheted up the stressors on our precious and unique freshwater ecosystems.

With our towns and cities almost always positioned in a landscape shaped by water, it is no surprise that changes in climate will be experienced close to home.

With valleys incised by millennia of streamflow, floodplains formed by the power of riverine sediment transport, and indigenous ecosystems evolved over millions of years to thrive in our unique corner of the globe we are a land shaped by the power of nature.

As sea levels rose and fell with ice ages and our landscape heaved under tectonic forces, a landform of harbours, estuaries, rivers, wetlands, and streams attracted early Māori settlers and European arrivals.

Kāinga (villages), māra (gardens) and ara (pathways) were established and prospered through an understanding and respect of the natural environment and the ability of freshwater to sustain communities.

European colonisers saw the same value in the landscape but as populations grew they sought to ‘tame’ nature to create towns and cities where the development of floodplains, valleys and coastal margins could somehow be ‘managed’ to sustain rampant urban growth without undue risk to life or property.

Rivers were dammed to supply municipal water systems, wastewater collected and ‘treated’ before being returned to the environment, and surface runoff was redefined as stormwater and

Kukuwai

Te

o Toa Wetland Porirua

forced into a dendritic web of pipes and concrete lined channels which often follow the same alignment as the once abundant streams and wetlands.

This trajectory of urban water modification has continued to disconnect our communities from the nature which initially defined the landscapes where they live. Today, a cocktail of contaminants and dramatic hydrological modifications threaten our unique indigenous freshwater fish, shellfish and invertebrates and as seen over recent months increasingly threaten our properties and people.

It is time to reconsider our relationship with urban water and look to more nature based solutions to protect and enhance our fresh and coastal ecosystems.

As we continue to better understand the impacts that urban development has on our fresh and coastal waters (and the ecological, cultural and social values they support), there has been an increasing focus on how the water industry needs to change practice.

Over the past 20 years or so concepts such as Low Impact Design (LID), Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) and Green Infrastructure (GI) have increasingly crept into terminology to describe a more holistic way of mitigating the impact of urbanisation on the natural environment.

Many councils now have policy and guidance which is intended to support improved outcomes with urban stormwater but, unfortunately, the uptake has not been as fast as is required to keep pace with urban growth, and the implementation of alternative stormwater measures has often been poorly delivered resulting in expensive and underperforming assets, which in many instances are a long term financial burden for councils.

At a time when the water industry has been struggling to reliably deliver the transformative change needed to manage urban water, many councils have experienced rapid residential and commercial growth with an acceleration in infill intensification.

If we are serious about giving effect to Te Mana o Te Wai and supporting the aspirations of communities across the country for healthy thriving ecosystems, we need to urgently find ways to improve on the status quo.

Recently, across the globe there has been a shift towards the use of the term ‘Nature-based Solutions (NbS)’ as a way to describe a holistic approach to the built and modified environment that works with natural processes rather than against.

In 2022, the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA5) formally adopted a definition of Nature-based Solutions as; “actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human wellbeing, ecosystem services and resilience

It is time to reconsider our relationship with urban water and look to more nature based solutions to protect and enhance our fresh and coastal ecosystems.

Te Kukuwai o Toa Wetland Porirua underwater

and biodiversity benefits.”

Therefore, whilst encapsulating the principles of water sensitive design and the use of green infrastructure, NbSs are defined by the ability to respond to more than one driver in a human influenced landscape and utilise natural systems in a manner which provides resilience across a range of spatial and temporal scales for both chronic and acute stressors.

Examples of water focussed urban NbSs include;

• Construction of urban wetlands to treat stormwater, provide flood detention, connect communities with nature and increase urban ecology,

• Integration of water sensitive design elements including raingardens, green roofs, tree pits and vegetated swales with urban development to treat stormwater, retain small rainfall depths, connect communities with nature and increase urban ecology,

• Capture of rainwater (at lot or community scale) for non potable uses to retain small rainfall depths (replicate natural

flow patterns), avoid contaminant discharge, reduce demand on mains supply, connect communities with water and provide resilience to shock events (such as earthquakes),

• Increased planting of urban trees (in particular indigenous street trees) to mitigate urban heat impacts, reduce runoff in small rainfall events and support urban ecology,

• Protection and restoration of functional riparian corridors to reduce sedimentation, sequester carbon and support indigenous biodiversity,

• Protection and/or reinstatement of natural urban stream channels to safely pass extreme flood flows and support urban ecology and biodiversity, and

• Identifying and protecting overland flows/paths to replicate natural ephemeral hydrology and pass peak flows with managed risk to life and property.

Alternatives to NbSs can, in some instances, provide a similar level of service but will not typically provide co-

benefits, and in many instances can result in related negative outcomes such as;

• High embodied carbon in heavily engineered concrete structures,

• Lack of resilience to large flood events including where power outages occur and/or maintenance access cut off,

• Increased lifecycle costs from mechanised or bespoke water treatment systems, and

• Financial impacts on private/public land through engineered solutions causing worsening of conditions such as coastal erosion on adjacent land.

NbSs are therefore recognised as offering cost effective and resilient solutions to a wide range of often complex land use related problems while simultaneously supporting other nonfinancial benefits to communities and indigenous ecosystems.

In working with nature, it is fundamentally important to ensure that the designs and solutions we develop are both supportive of the complex biological chemical process that NbSs rely on while

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also being resilient to a changing climatic context, in particular, changes in regular rainfall patterns and urban temperatures.

While existing design guidelines for devices such as constructed wetlands, bioretention, and other green infrastructure are often presented in the familiar calculation based ‘engineered’ approach, it is critical that designers understand the reason for design decisions and the importance of the more nuanced ecological aspects of design.

This requires careful consideration of the role of vegetation (including the microbial communities they support) in the treatment process and the importance of core functional components such as filter media.

For example, the uptake of contaminants by plants is only a very minor component of treatment in most vegetated systems, and bioretention media is not primarily a growing media but rather an important

substrate to support a select range of key functional species which in turn sustain the ability of the device to perform.

Designing with a knowledge and awareness of the importance of plant selection, root structures, wetland bathymetry, etc, is therefore needed to avoid poor outcomes and lost opportunities.

Similarly, an informed understanding of the role that rainwater reuse plays in mimicking the natural hydrological processes (replicating interception evapotranspiration that occurs before any infiltration or surface runoff) is fundamental to ensuring that integrated designs can mitigate the potential impacts of urbanisation in a way which protects existing waterbodies and enhances those already degraded from historical development.

The effective implementation of Nature-based Solutions therefore requires

current and future water professionals and urban designers to broaden our technical knowledge base and increase capacity to work across the nexus of ecology and engineering.

As urbanisation and intensification accelerate across our cities and towns there is a critical need to accelerate the capacity of the water industry to meet the challenges with more Nature-based Solutions. Failure to do so will limit the ability to protect our remaining fresh and coastal waters and compromise ongoing efforts to enhance our currently highly degraded urban waters.

At a time when our fresh waters are under ever increasing threats from urbanisation and communities are needing to adapt to be resilient to the changing climate, we need to re-learn to have a positive relationship with nature and support thriving well-functioning urban environments.

Garrett St raingarden in central Wellington

A vision for the generations

When the Whanganui River was granted ‘personhood’ in 2017, the decision was, for some, a challenge to long-held notions of the natural world and our relationship with it. For Māori of the region, it was an entirely natural and appropriate acknowledgment of not only one of New Zealand’s great rivers, but recognition of a living ancestor.

A shift in thinking – how we view the natural environment and our responsibilities towards it – has begun to manifest in the management of many of the country’s most fundamental institutions, industries, and resources, including our waterways.

Some of that change in attitude is being expressed in cogovernance – usually a 50/50 split in representation between Crown agencies and iwi to oversee the management of those resources.

The language and interpretation of the concept is important. A report from legal firm Minter Ellison Rudd Watts (MERW) in December 2022 notes that co-governance does not mean ownership, but rather partnership in the governance or overview of an entity or resource.

In some cases, this system has been in place for many years as a result of Te Tiriti o Waitangi settlements and other partnership agreements, quietly getting on with the job of protecting and improving water systems that are part of the natural taonga of Aotearoa.

In 2020, the Ministry for the Environment expanded its freshwater management policy under Te Mana O Te Wai (which sets out a hierarchy of obligations) to call for even more engagement with Māori on water issues, with a requirement for councils and tangata whenua to work together on any decisions.

Recently, however, the concept of management through partnership, and the intentions of the participants, has become politicised, conflated with the creation of Māori local body wards, the new Māori Health Authority (Te Aka Whai Ora), and the confusion of the Three Waters debate. Misunderstandings have created a climate of fear over the very word ‘co-governance’.

Chris Finlayson, a former Attorney-General and Minister for Treaty Negotiations, was quoted in the MERW report as saying it was important that people be allowed to question applications or extensions of co-governance principles to other areas, and to do that “without being labelled racist or ignorant”.

He noted that the quality of discussion on the topic had become “very shallow”’ and a clear definition of the term co-governance was important.

“It is not an opportunity to micromanage the officials’ work, but a chance to set priorities and to have a say in how to manage a resource.”

In terms of water management, his view is that it makes sense to work with people who have lived alongside waterways “for hundreds of years”. People who can “provide expertise

Away from the political arena, co-governance is being celebrated for its role in the improved management and restoration of our waterways, now and into the future. By Ellen Brook.

Matapōuri Bay, Northland

Right: In March this year, the Auckland council-controlled Watercare Services company and mana whenua celebrated the completion of a $128 million upgrade of the Pukekohe Wastewater Treatment Plant. Far right: A summer peak of more than 1000 visitors a day to the Matapōuri area has overwhelmed infrastructure and damaged natural features such as the famous Te Wai o Te Taniwha (The Mermaid Pools).

and knowledge to manage it for better outcomes for all New Zealanders – practically, that is a sensible thing to do”.

In fact, the Ministry for the Environment says the intention of the co-governance model is for long-term, inter-generational change that will enable iwi/hapū and Māori organisations, councils, communities and farmers to plan now for changes over the next 30 years and beyond.

There is a hard-wired philosophy behind Māori interest in waterways and it’s an approach that sits firmly within Te Mana O Te Wai, which says the health of the water must come first. The intention is for that thinking to permeate all aspects of water management.

And the collaboration with tangata whenua must be more than lip-service or a one-off consultation, which is why the 50/50 split of representation is significant.

In the area of freshwater management, the Crown and five iwi already manage the Waikato River Authority and Ngāi Tūhoi and the Department of Conservation work together to oversee the Te Uruwera forest, among several other co-governance arrangements throughout the country.

Wastewater, western science, mātauranga Māori

In March this year, the Auckland council-controlled Watercare Services company and mana whenua celebrated the completion of a $128 million upgrade of the Pukekohe Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The plant services Pukekohe, Buckland, Tuakau, Pokeno, and Patumahoe and the upgrade, which began in 2019, has doubled its capacity from 30,000 households to 60,000, with a 35-year resource consent – the only one of that duration granted along the Waikato River.

The company worked with representatives of nine marae along the lower Waikato River, with conversations kicking off in 2014 when it became obvious that the existing wastewater system would not be able to meet projected population growth.

Watercare board chair Margaret Devlin says the discussions combined cultural, social, and environmental concerns with scientific data, engineering processes and cost implications.

During the process, she says, “our staff developed a new appreciation for the relationship that mana whenua have with the awa [river/waterway] and the impact that population growth had inflicted on it. We realised we needed to not just protect the awa, but to restore it”.

The original proposal was for a membrane plant that would discharge through an outfall into the Waikato River. To say iwi were less than impressed is an understatement. Watercare was told that having structures such as that in the river would be “like a knife in the back of our ancestors”.

Eventually, a less-invasive solution was agreed on, with an advanced membrane treatment plant discharging treated wastewater into a tributary of the Waikato River, the Parker

Lane Stream. The result, says Watercare wastewater operations controller Iris Tscharntke, is a state-of-the-art facility that is one of the best in the country.

In technical speak, it uses membrane bioreactors that combine ultra-filtration with biological treatment processes. In layperson’s terms, “an army of good bugs eating the carbon in the liquid wastewater and reducing the amount of organic compounds and nitrogen”, which means significantly lower levels of nitrogen in the discharge.

Iris says the capacity of the plant was doubled by converting existing sequencing batch reactors to activated sludge reactors.

It is expected the upgrade will cope with population growth over the next 30 years, thereby fulfilling at least one medium to long-term contract with the river.

It was the more expensive option, but, says Watercare resource consenting manager Tanvir Bhamji: “The iwi threshold was around the Waikato Vision strategy, which is to restore water quality back to the 1860s levels … We got to the point of understanding the western science then applying mātauranga Māori [Māori knowledge] on top of that. The double-barrier wastewater treatment plan, which includes UV disinfection that removes biological pathogens, was acceptable to iwi.”

The iwi aspirations are for waterways that are swimmable, fishable, and drinkable.

“We have achieved two of those and are still working towards the third one [drinkable water],” Tanvir says.

Technology is just one component of that vision. Tanvir highlights the riparian planting being planned upstream from the discharge on two hectares of land owned by Watercare. It’s part of a more holistic approach to water management, with plants conducive to the restoration of aquatic life, insects and fish being reintroduced

along the riverbank, as suggested by mana whenua based on oral histories of the area.

“Iwi expertise is very much focused around restoration and improving the quality of the water,” Tanvir says. “What does that look like to them and then how do we make it drinkable, fishable, and swimmable?

“Iwi think inter-generationally and our projects aren’t that long. There are some things we can’t do right now. For example, iwi would prefer we didn’t have any discharging into waterways. That’s not feasible at the moment, technologically or financially, but we can start working towards that.”

The advanced membrane plant is a step towards possible reuse, he says, because it is treating the wastewater to such a high standard. “The next step would be to put a water treatment plant on the back of that and you would have potable water.”

Tanvir says the 35-year consent granted to the project shows that the decision makers had confidence that the strategy the wider team was proposing would not only provide for the wellbeing of the community but also the mana whenua benchmark of a longer vision.

Board chair Margaret Devlin is also keen to correct what she sees as “some bad press for the wrong reasons” that has hijacked understanding of co-governance.

Organisations such as Watercare and other entities proposed under water reform programmes need to work with partners, she says, because, while Watercare has a particular form of expertise, “we don’t hold the monopoly on expertise”.

“We need to work in a meaningful way with our partners instead of just going through a tick-box exercise. We are at the very start of our journey of an evolving and sustaining partnership, not just a fair-weather friend looking for a project to be approved.”

Waikato Tainui executive chair Tukoroirangi Morgan says he is confident the relationships made during the project will endure.

The Pukekohe upgrade was “a step in the right direction” to addressing water quality in the Waikato River and iwi would like more urgency applied to similar key infrastructure projects.

Restoration at Matapōuri

Another tenet of some co-governance models that mana whenua are keen to emphasise is that they are not there only to offer advice; they are there as decision makers.

At Matapōuri in Northland that ethos is being embraced in a cogovernance arrangement between Te Whānau ā Rangiwhakaahu hapū (TWR) and Whangārei District Council.

They are working together to restore some outstanding natural coastal features and cultural taonga that have been degraded by the impacts of tourism. A summer peak of more than 1000 visitors a day to the area has overwhelmed infrastructure and damaged natural features such as the famous Te Wai o Te Taniwha (The Mermaid Pools). Sunscreen, sanitary items, urine and other waste have posed a health risk for visitors and resulted in marine life disappearing from the area. Forests and archaeological sites were also under threat due to uncontrolled access.

A case study produced for the council and iwi says mana whenua identified the issues and did what they could as kaitiaki [guardians], but with the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the council owning the land and holding responsibility for maintenance and care of the area, they struggled to make progress.

In April 2019, TWR placed a rāhui [prohibiting access] on Te Wai o Te Taniwha and nearby Rangitapu Pa to allow for regeneration.

The “Restoring the Mauri of Matapōuri” project was established in July 2019, co-funded by the district council and the Tourism Infrastructure Fund, with mātauranga Māori and mana whenua empowerment central to its delivery.

Since then, the joint endeavour has been responsible for: installing two Procopress solar compacting bins to deal with litter and two glass recycling bins; creating a grass-path walkway; sand dune restoration; a waterless composting toilet; traffic calming; signage reflecting Māori history.

They have also organised community meetings, designed

General practice Partnership between WDC and TWR

Meetings held when required

Update and decision-making focused

Fortnightly meetings

Relationship focused

Hapū treated as professional consultants within a confined field Hapū treated as trusted partners with holistic knowledge and expertise

• Discussed and formally agreed on the project and partnership values from the start

• Goodwill

As quick as possible

Business level relationships

Meet as professionals there to deliver a project

Cost benefit analysis

Multi criterion analysis

• Focus on relationship building

• Long-term aspirations alignment

• Power sharing – full involvement in decision making

Personal level relationships

Meet as friends

Use Māori ways of measuring benefit Mauri [life force] model

A comparison between the previous model of governance and the partnership model.

and prioritised works and had a “Welcome to Matapōuri” sign erected. Less tangibly, but perhaps more significantly, a growing sense of trust and respect has been reported among the partners.

Shelley Wharton, the council’s manager for infrastructure programmes, says it’s a great example of a non-legislated partnership at a project level, with practical implementation and changes along the way due to the partnership approach.

“Terms of reference for the project were developed together, based on Te Arawhiti [Office for Māori Crown Relations] guidelines, and a project structure was established to clearly define roles for shared decision-making. As part of a respectful relationship, Te Whanau ā Rangiwhakaahu hapū is referred to by name, and not as a generic ‘local hapū’. We found that working in this way brought the whole community closer together.”

The table on page 30 offers a comparison between the previous model of governance and the partnership model.

A vision of hope for Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere

The history of Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere south of Christchurch would give pause for thought to anyone interested in water management, but recent successes under the lake’s co-governance

model are inspiring hope for the troubled waterway.

This geological and culturally important hāpua (coastal lagoon), originally known as Te Kete Ika o Rākaihautū (The Fish Basket of Rakaihautū), was renowned for the abundance of animal and plant life in its shallow, brackish waters.

The bounty Te Waihora provided was important to Māori and early settlers, but subsequent settlements, privatisation of property, water use, fishing and farming took their toll with little thought for sustainability.

Te Waihora means ‘spreading waters’, but, ironically, at 20,000 hectares, the lake today is only half its original size. Nonetheless, it is still the largest lake in Canterbury.

In recent times it has been plagued with toxic algae and as far back as 2017, Environment Canterbury (ECan) made a grim assertion that for the lake to meet national water quality standards nearly every farm in the district would need to shut down.

The degradation of Te Waihora goes back generations and Te Waihora/Lake Ellesmere: This geological and culturally important hāpua (coastal lagoon), originally known as Te Kete Ika o Rākaihautū (The Fish Basket of Rakaihautū), was renowned for the abundance of animal and plant life in its shallow, brackish waters.

those who are now overseeing a plan for restoration – the Te Waihora Co-Governance Group – say it will take at least two more generations to achieve that.

In 2012, Ngai Tahu and ECan signed a co-governance agreement between the Crown and iwi, creating the Te Waihora Co-Governance Group and developed a Joint Restoration Plan (Whakaora Te Waihora). It followed the settlement of Ngāi Tahu claims against the Crown, including loss of access to places where the tribe produced or sourced food and other resources. In 2014, Selwyn District Council joined the group, followed by Christchurch City Council in 2016 and the Department of Conservation (DOC) Te Papa Atawhai in 2019.

As co-chairs Liz Brown (Ngāi Tahu co-governor) and Peter Scott (Environment Canterbury chair) explain, they see co-governance as part of the evolution of how government parties now work with Treaty partners.

The role of their co-governance group is not as a decisionmaking body, they say, but “to advise the different parties who hold statutory and customary roles and expertise”. The reason it works well in water management, they say, is because water is fundamental to the values of all parties and therefore creates a common purpose.

The co-governance agreement requires a 50/50 split in representation, with each party’s contribution detailed like this:

Ngāi Tahu

• Owner of the lakebed;

• Statutory powers from the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act;

• Values-based authenticity;

• Treaty partnership;

• Ki Uta Ki Tai [mountains to sea] expertise;

• Intergenerational commitment;

• Whānau and hapū network of experts and kaitiaki.

ECan, Christchurch City Council, Department of Conservation

Te Papa Atawhai, Selwyn District Council

• Network across the region;

• Constitutional relationship with Crown;

• Embedded sustainability commitment;

• Statutory responsibilities;

• Expertise in resource management and biodiversity;

• Substantial organisation.

The result of their work is that inspiring and tangible changes are now a reality at Te Waihora, with farmers developing more sustainable practices and several restoration projects being initiated around the lakeshore, in-lake habitats and its tributaries. Highlights include:

• 350,00 plants installed;

• Supporting DOC’s Weed Strikeforce, which is on target to make the lakeshore willow-free, enabling natural regeneration of habitat;

• Real-time monitoring of water quality;

• A trial re-establishment of macrophytes (water-plant beds);

• Investigations for fish recruitment/fisheries management, the lake opening (see below), the bio-health of mahinga kai [food gathering resources], assessment of nutrient attenuation and nutrient cycling;

• Supporting educational projects;

• 21.3 kilometres of waterways re-battered (excavation work to improve riverbank stability) to reduce sediment;

• The Whakaora Te Ahuriri wetland project to improve water quality, mahinga kai and biodiversity;

• The Whakaora Te Waikēkēwai project restoring the lower reaches of Te Waikēkēwai stream.

Because there is no natural outlet between Te Waihora and the sea, it is intermittently artificially opened to the ocean to mitigate flooding and provide a link between the lake and the sea for migratory fish. This practice has happened since pre-Pakeha times.

Currently, consent for opening the lake is jointly held by two of the co-governance parties and the agreement includes consultation with all interested parties.

The first written settlers’ record of an artificial opening was in 1852. It has been opened more than 300 times since then, with the most recent opening on March 26 this year using specialist diggers and heavy machinery.

The opening of the lake is a fitting example of how ancient and modern knowledge can combine to benefit the health and sustainability of the environment and contribute to the shared vision of restoring the mauri and ecosystem of Te Waihora for current and future generations.

Preparing coastal communities for change

Our coastline is changing as sea levels rise. Lawrence Gullery of NIWA looks at a five-year research programme designed to help communities with tough decisions ahead.

A helicopter sweeps into view over a mangrove forest in the Bay of Plenty carrying equipment vital to tracking the long-term health of our coastal wetlands. It is the first of three payloads carefully dropped at 100 metre intervals into the Athenree Estuary near Waihi Beach.

Three more are deployed into the estuary’s saltmarsh flats, about one kilometre away.

While the helicopter works above, researchers and technicians from NIWA and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, battle kneedeep mud as they start assembling the first of six Rod Surface Elevation Table, or RSET, instruments. These are sensitive measuring devices that can accurately monitor surface elevation changes in our coastal wetlands.

The information the RSETs gather will be crucial for assessing the future health of Athenree’s mangrove forests and saltmarsh habitats.

The substrate that mangroves and saltmarsh plants grow in must keep pace with sea-level rise. If the sea rises too quickly and the build-up of the substrate below fails to keep pace, they will die.

And the survival of this sensitive estuarine habitat, and its counterparts around New Zealand, is critical. It functions as a long-term sink for stormwater contaminants, supports biodiversity and provides nurseries for estuarine and coastal fish species.

Mangroves also mitigate coastal erosion and flooding by absorbing the impact of storm waves, extreme tides and tsunami.

People living nearby need to understand how these important habitats are changing and what can be done to ensure the longevity of our estuaries.

The field team secures the RSET receiver unit into the muddy estuary floor. In a couple of months, when the site has settled, the researchers will return to attach the sensitive measuring device to the receiver.

It’s a portable horizontal arm with a series of nine vertical pins which can measure minute changes in surface elevation. The device can swing around on the receiver to take measurements at the north, south, east and west positions.

In the following days, six more RSET monitoring sites are installed at Ōhiwa Harbour in the Eastern Bay of Plenty.

Both projects are led by NIWA coastal and estuarine physical processes scientist Dr Andrew Swales, who was involved in installing New Zealand’s first RSETs in mangroves in the Firth of Thames.

NIWA has been contracted by the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to install these latest instruments and the council will use the equipment to track the health of saltmarsh wetlands and shape their response to changing environmental conditions.

“This is an important opportunity to work with the regional council here in Athenree,” Andrew says.

“The RSETs will give the council baseline information to manage these systems, understand the pressures on them around sea-level rise as well as what’s coming in from the catchment in terms of sediment.”

Data from the monitoring stations will also inform wider coastal wetland research in the NIWA-led Future Coasts Aotearoa research programme.

Andrew is one of the research leaders involved in the five-year study which aims to provide tools and guidance to help rural communities around the country living in coastal lowland, adapt and prosper despite unavoidable sea-level rise.

“It’s about the whole balance between nature and society. Can we as a country adapt to sea-level rise in a way that balances the values and the needs of nature, as well as the needs and values of communities and society, and in a way that isn’t at the expense of one or the other?”

Andrew says records going back a century prove sea levels are rising.

“What’s still up for debate is how we respond to that. And organisations like NIWA are trying to inform that debate in a constructive way, by providing the information needed by decision makers.”

Dr Christo Rautenbach is a specialist in coastal and estuarine modelling at NIWA. He leads the Future Coasts Aotearoa study, in partnership with his colleague, environmental social scientist Jordan Luttrell.

A helicopter drops Rod Surface Elevation Table (RSET) equipment into the mangrove forest of Athenree Estuary.

“Sea-level rise varies depending on the location. It’s not uniform, but it is inevitable that the sea will continue to rise,” Christo says.

“Will sea levels rise faster than first anticipated? That’s the big question, and we can’t say for sure just yet.”

Future Coasts Aotearoa is the first sea-level research programme to focus on New Zealand’s rural, lowland landscapes.

“Other research typically focuses on the built environment, without much consideration for farms, rural infrastructure and ecosystems.

“Current strategies, in lowland regions, are likely to fail because we don’t understand how sea-level rise will impact on natural habitat, and what the impact will be on productive land.”

Future Coasts Aotearoa involves 50 researchers, some from international agencies, and 11 stakeholder groups, along with local and central government, Waka Kotahi, and the Department of Conservation.

It addresses the physical science behind sea-level rise as well as the social and economic impact that issues such as inundation and rising salinity levels will have on lowland coastal communities.

Case studies are being explored in Northland, the lower Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Canterbury where early engagement has begun with Māori and councils.

These study areas each face unique challenges posed by sealevel rise. Working with individual communities will help researchers determine the opportunities for adaptation across the country.

Data gathered will suggest what changes are likely in groundwater levels, salinity levels and wetlands. The information will improve our understanding of where and when the country will reach an ‘adaption threshold point’.

Left: Dr Andrew Swales is a specialist in estuary sedimentation and processes, and leads NIWA's RSET installation programme. Above: Drilling up to 3m into the mangrove mud, researchers concrete in the poles which will hold the sensitive RSET sea-level rise measuring device. Below: Environmental technician Barry Greenfield heads out across the Athenree salt marsh to help set up a new station for monitoring sea-level rise.

That’s the point when coastal communities will have to decide between managed realignment or managed retreat.

Realignment involves removing coastal protection and allowing an area to become flooded, creating a new wetland or salt marsh habitat. Rather than relying on hard structures for defence, managed realignment depends on natural defences to absorb or dissipate the force of waves.

Future Coasts Aotearoa aims to show how these changes can be made while ensuring coastal communities can remain prosperous. That’s the solution many councils are looking for, and some have already begun to plan for changes prompted by sea-level rise.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council is studying the rate and the effects of saltwater intrusion into floodplains used for farming. The results will determine when it will no longer be economically feasible to farm, and what the land could be used for instead.

The council also has a community-led funding initiative which supports three coastal hapū with their first steps of adaptation planning.

Thames-Coromandel District Council has 400 kilometres of coastline and is finalising its Shoreline Management Plan. It’s the result of three years of consultation and research to manage coastal hazards, coastal erosion and inundation.

Further south, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is developing its Kotahi Plan to replace its Regional Policy Statement, Resource Management Plan, and Coastal Environment Plan.

It has 350 kilometres of shoreline and Kotahi will have a focus on managing the coastal environment, human impacts on coastal and marine habitats as well as climate change, sea-level rise and inundation.

Christo says Future Coasts Aotearoa research will provide the science needed by councils responsible for writing coastal management plans. It will also give guidance to the Ministry for the Environment and will feed into ongoing national policy revision on sea-level rise and coastal adaptation.

“We are hopeful this will build resilience in New Zealand communities as we brace ourselves for the inevitable changes to come.”

Athenree Estuary mangrove forest near Waihi Beach.

The substrate that mangroves and saltmarsh plants grow in must keep pace with sea-level rise. If the sea rises too quickly and the build-up of the substrate below fails to keep pace, they will die.

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Critical milestone for Huia 1

Watercare’s $139 million dollar Huia 1 Watermain Upgrade, which is replacing the existing pipeline that has been in service since 1950, has recently completed works along Atkinson Road in Titirangi, Auckland.

The Huia 1 Replacement Watermain Upgrade project recently wrapped up work on Atkinson Road in Auckland’s western suburbs two months early.

This was achieved by pulling in contractors working on other sections of the Huia 1 pipeline; enabling them to complete the 850 metre section in under five months.

Watercare has been working with construction partner March Cato to steadily build the 17 kilometre replacement pipeline that will provide potable water to around 20 percent of Auckland’s population, as well as building and installing the pipeline that will stretch from Western Reservoirs in Konini Road in Titirangi to an existing new watermain underneath Gillies Avenue in Epsom.

Once complete, the new Huia 1 watermain will service homes and businesses in Titirangi, Blockhouse Bay, New Windsor, Green Bay, Hillsborough, Mount Roskill, and Epsom.

Watercare project manager Tim Manning says the pipeline will also be trenched into reserves as well as along roads and footpaths to make it easier for future maintenance and access, and with 66 percent of the pipeline already complete, things are on track to finish the new pipeline by mid-2025.

Tim says the project’s scope has also undergone some changes since its initial proposal back in 2017, which proposed to renew the Nihotupu Watermain at the same time as the Huia 1 Watermain.

“However, plans to renew the Nihotupu Watermain were scrapped in 2021 in favour of a small pump station near Kaurilands Primary School that better complemented our current western water network – where the Huia 1 and 2 water mains could be easily connected.”

Changing tack empowered Watercare to better align its business objectives, which include reducing the project cost by 20 percent by the end of the year, and saving $5.5 million in construction and labour costs, and six-months construction time.

With the Atkinson Road section of the Huia 1 replacement project now complete, the team will continue to work on the Daffodil Street intersection. In June, the project team will turn their attention to the Mount Roskill section of the project, which goes from the Scout Avenue and Simmonds Avenue intersection and down McCullough Avenue finishing at the Duke Street carpark near Te Tatua-a-Riukitu reserve – locally known as the Big King entry.”

Once complete, the new Huia 1 watermain will service homes and businesses in Titirangi, Blockhouse Bay, New Windsor, Green Bay, Hillsborough, Mount Roskill, and Epsom.

Watercare has been working with construction partner March Cato to steadily build the 17 kilometre replacement pipeline that will provide potable water to around 20 percent of Auckland’s population.

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Work starting on Rotorua Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade

Originally constructed in 1973, the plant needs to be upgraded to meet higher projected population demand and to ensure ongoing management of wai tātari in an environmentally sustainable and culturally appropriate way and for the ongoing protection of people’s health.

Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell says the upgrade will preserve and protect the region’s lakes for present and future generations which is the vision of the Rotorua Te Arawa Lakes Programme.

“Although our current treatment plant is still among the best in the country and treats recovered water to a very high standard, futureproofing is needed to maintain these high treatment standards and meet projected increased demand.”

The plant currently processes 19.7 million litres of wastewater daily which includes sewage, industrial wastewater, contaminated groundwater, stormwater and sediment. The upgrade will enable the plant to treat an average of 25.3 million litres per day with the ability to process 72 million litres during peak inflow periods.

The upgraded treatment process will continue to remove large amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, and disinfecting the treated water before discharging to Whakarewarewa Forest through an irrigation system ahead of entering the lake at Puarenga Bay (Sulphur Point).

Rotorua Lakes Council infrastructure and environmental solutions deputy chief executive Stavros Michael says the short to medium-term discharge solution involves upgrading the treatment plant and the continued use of the forest irrigation system for discharge of wai tātari –with operational improvements – while council and mana whenua work towards a long-term, new discharge point solution.

“Stage one site works are planned over three years with a comprehensive testing phase undertaken and switching plant processing from old to new seeing the project complete in 2027,” Stavros says.

“The upgrade will continue treating wastewater to an extremely high standard, removing pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus and

disinfecting bacteria like  E. Coli. The recovered water will continue to meet our water quality targets, sustainability goals and most importantly, future-proofing of our district’s wastewater operations capacity.”

Trility won the undertaking through open tendering and was awarded the contract in October 2022 with site works started in January 2023. Following the plant upgrade, Trility will engage a consolidated contract approach to operate, maintain and renew the wastewater’s networks over the next 10 years.

The upgrade design includes new inlet screening systems; modification of existing Bardenpho unit to improve phosphorus and nitrogen removal; installation of new membrane reactor units to further clean wastewater and remove nutrients; ultraviolet treatment to remove all remaining pathogens; and addition of wastewater storage capacity to prevent spills from large in-flows that are typically caused by stormwater entering the sewer system.

Article provided by Rotorua Lakes Council

Work has started on a $60 million upgrade of the Rotorua Wastewater Treatment Plant that will cater for future community growth and more effective management of wai tātari (recovered water) for the district.

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New WWTP for Cambridge

Waipā District Council has committed to its biggest ever contract package – more than $86 million – for the building of a brand new wastewater treatment plant for Cambridge.

The plant will receive, treat and discharge wastewater from Cambridge, Leamington, Hautapu, and Karapiro Domain. It will replace the existing plant at Matos Segedin Drive in Cambridge west which has been operational since the late 1970s but will struggle to meet increasingly stringent environmental expectations.

Group manager service delivery Dawn Inglis says the new plant will cope with Cambridge’s fast-growing population and also meet much higher environmental standards and commitments to the Waikato River.

“Our existing plant receives wastewater, treats it and then discharges it to land before the water travels to the Waikato River as groundwater. While this form of treatment has been acceptable in the past, environmental standards are now much higher.

“We also have higher aspirations, and legal obligations to the health of the Waikato River. The new plant will treat wastewater to a very, very high standard using specialised membrane bioreactor technology. It will

be one of the most advanced plants in New Zealand and something to be proud of.”

A resource consent application was formally lodged with the Waikato Regional Council for the new plant before Christmas and is now being publicly notified. In the meantime, based on the consent being granted, contracts have been let for specialist inlet works equipment design, manufacture, delivery and commissioning and staff training (to Spirac Pty); the supply and commissioning of membranes and peripheral equipment (to Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions); and plant construction (to Spartan Construction).

In total, the three contracts are valued at just more than $86 million from a total plant budget of around $100 million.

Dawn says the new plant will look entirely different to the one that exists now, taking up just one third of the existing footprint on the 37-hectare site near the Waikato River. Unused land on the site which is not required for the new plant will be remediated and put to other use.

Biosolids will be taken off site for re-use as compost via a third-party. The new plant will include its own solar farm to generate enough energy to power the plant during the day.

Work on designing a new plant to service Cambridge began in 2021. Early construction work was expected to begin in April 2023, with works completed and the new plant up and running by June 2026.

Dawn says construction of the plant aligns with work undertaken jointly by Hamilton City Council, Waikato District Council, Waipā District Council, and tangata whenua on developing a detailed business case for future wastewater solutions across the Waikato sub-region. That work has already identified the need to upgrade the existing wastewater plant at Te Awamutu, currently tentatively scheduled to begin in 2035.

Article provided by Waipā District Council

Dawn Inglis and Council’s water services manager Martin Mould on site at the existing wastewater treatment plant in Cambridge. Contracts for a replacement plant have now been let.

In 2022 NZTE Sustainability Beachheads issued the friendly challenge to Armatec to better articulate how we contribute to a sustainable future. In taking this challenge on, ThinkStep-ANZ completed a materiality assessment for us & designed the sustainability program below based on our activities. We share our current progress to date below. The intention of sharing in this Water Journal with our Water NZ colleagues,

We are working with our customers and suppliers to continue to make business more sustainable

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is to help support continuation of this journey for NZ manufacturing & service organisations. Lowering the embodied carbon footprint in our supply chain is a key challenge we’ve identified within our footprint auditing & are actively working with suppliers to reduce emissions. Read more about our journey & the gains we’ve made to date https://www.armatec.co.nz/insights/sustainability-program

Working with our customers and suppliers to achieve sustainable outcomes

Together share information and research to promote product stewardship and environmental transparency.

Customers:

> Collaborate with us to design out emissions before fabricating and implementing

> Work together to maintain, reuse and innovate to care for our environment

Suppliers:

> Procure quality, fit-for-purpose materials responsibly

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> Collaborate to calculate carbon footprints or invest in Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs)

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New water bridge to increase water supply resilience

Construction of Whakawhirinaki: The Silverstream Water Bridge and Shared Path, carrying bulk water supplies across Te Awa Kairangi/Hutt River has begun.

A karakia and naming ceremony led by Taranaki Whanui was held at dawn in early March to bless the project and name the new bridge which will be positioned downstream from the existing road and rail bridges connecting State Highway 2 to Fergusson Drive, Silverstream.

The project is the final stage multiyear programme of water infrastructure investment to replace and realign bulk water pipes at Silverstream to cross Te Awa Kairangi/Hutt River, ensuring the region is well equipped to respond in the event of a major earthquake or weather event that could affect water supply.

Mana Whenua Taranaki Whanui Chair Kura Moeahu said the name Whakawhirinaki means ‘to lean against something, trust in something, depend on or rely on’.

“Whirinaki is also the original name of the region, so by naming this bridge Whakawhirinaki we are saying we trust in it and rely on it given the huge responsibility it has to carry our region's water through Hutt Valley and Waiwhetu to its final destination.”

All of Upper Hutt, Stokes Valley, Porirua and much of Wellington City’s water supply comes from the Te Marua water treatment plant, on average, around 40% of the region’s total water supply. Water sourced from Te Awa Kairangi / Hutt River is collected and treated at the Te Marua Water Treatment Plant before travelling along a critical bulk water pipeline that crosses the river at Silverstream.

Greater Wellington’s Upper Hutt Councillor, Ros Connelly, said construction getting underway on the bridge was an important milestone for the region’s water supply resilience.

“A reliable water supply network is vital

for our region. This project and others, such as the Kaitoke Pipe Bridge replacement, capacity optimisation work at Te Marua Water Treatment Plant, and water main upgrades across the Wellington region, are all important long-term investments. They’ll ensure we have a sufficient water supply that meets the needs of the Wellington region, and a network that’s resilient against natural hazards.”

Wellington Water Head of Major Projects, Gary Cullen said while many water projects involved underground

pipework and were generally unseen, Whakawhirinaki, which is scheduled to be completed by September 2025, would become a valuable asset for the area.

“The dual purpose of the bridge to carry both water and a shared path for pedestrians and cyclists, linking both sides of the Hutt River Trail will ensure increased recreational opportunities for residents and visitors to the region while fulfilling an important job of helping get water to our taps.”

Article provided by Wellington Water.

By naming this bridge

Whakawhirinaki we are saying we trust in it and rely on it

Clean water leaks through accountability cracks

Otago University’s Public Health Communication Centre looks at how drinking water in Waimate came to exceed maximum allowable levels for nitrates, the weaknesses in responsibility and accountability for the protection of water sources and how the government can strengthen responsibility and accountability in our water drinking water supply system to prevent future contamination events.

Safe, good quality drinking water is a foundation of public health. The first, and most significant, barrier against drinking water contamination and illness is the protection of source water. Source water refers to the bodies of water (groundwater, rivers, lakes, springs, reservoirs) from which we take our drinking water.

However, as a Canterbury community found last year when they were notified that their drinking water source breached the health standard for nitrate, the protection of communities’ source waters has been neglected and its importance too frequently downplayed by those in charge of land and water use.

In the wake of the Havelock North outbreak, new valuable legislative and policy reforms were made but the Waimate breach reveals there are still weaknesses in responsibility and accountability for the protection of water sources.

On 6 August 2022, residents of a small town in Waimate in the Canterbury region were informed that their drinking water supply had breached the national drinking water standard for nitrate. The breach revealed a failure to protect the community’s source water from contamination, despite the protection of source water being the “first, and most significant, barrier against drinking water contamination and illness”. The case of the Waimate breach exposes weaknesses in responsibility and accountability of public agencies to protect sources of drinking water, which continues to leave source water and public health vulnerable.

Nitrate contamination of water has become a significant public health concern in recent decades, as the predicted consequences of intensified land use come to pass, and evidence emerges of broader human health implications from exposure to nitrates.

Nitrate loss to water has increased substantially, mainly due to an increase in dairy cattle (from 3.8 million animals in 1994 to 6.5 million in 2017) and supported by increases in the use of fertiliser, irrigation and imported feed.

The current drinking water standards set a Maximum Acceptable Value (MAV) for nitrate based on the World Health Organization guideline at 11.3mg/L nitrate-nitrogen (sometimes referred to as

50mg/L nitrate, which means the same) designed to prevent death from methaemoglobinemia in infants. This condition is commonly known as ‘blue baby syndrome’ as it interferes with oxygen in blood and may be indicated by a change in babies’ skin colour. The Waimate community’s drinking water breached this MAV.

At a public meeting called to discuss the exceedance in September 2022, a pregnant resident questioned authorities, “You’ve got a level of 50 milligrams currently, but we’ve obviously been exposed to this getting towards 50. What’s the risk of having had an entire pregnancy, potentially sitting around 48, 49?

“I’m two days off having a baby. So, I’ve been drinking this water my entire pregnancy until we were notified.”

More recently, experimental, genetic and epidemiological evidence has suggested nitrate in drinking water could increase the risk of bowel cancer and preterm birth at levels far below the current MAV.

For example, in 2018, a large Danish cohort study observed an increased risk of bowel cancer at levels 13 times lower than the MAV. In 2022, the Office of the Prime Minister’s chief science advisor provided a short review of the potential risk nitrate in drinking water poses to human health, which suggested the evidence was inconclusive with regards to nitrates' carcinogenic effects.

In June 2022, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) review concluded that: “There is an association between the risk of colorectal cancer and exposure to nitrites and/or nitrates, whether they are ingested via the consumption of processed meat or drinking water. The higher the exposure to these compounds, the greater the risk of colorectal cancer [bowel cancer] in the population.”

With emerging evidence and questions still to be answered about the risks to human health, public health logic would demand a precautionary approach to nitrate contamination. Best practice drinking water protection the world over has stressed the first barrier for safe, good quality drinking water is protection of its source.

However, this protection is inadequate currently.

How did the Waimate community’s source water become contaminated?

The contamination of Waimate’s drinking water didn’t happen overnight. Years earlier the regional council, Environment Canterbury (ECan), made land use decisions that would significantly increase nitrate contamination of the district’s fresh water and set the community’s Lower Waihao water supply on the path to the breach.

A 2015 report, prepared for ECan, on land use and farming practice change in the Waimate area investigated the likely impact of proposed conversions from border dyke irrigation to spray irrigation in an area called the ‘Northern Fan’. The Northern Fan includes the Lower Waihao groundwater source. The report estimated that in 2014 land use generated an average concentration of 2.5 mg/L, with approximately 33 percent of the 180 wells in the area potentially exceeding the MAV.

The report warned that, with proposed conversion from border dyke irrigation to spray irrigation, the average nitrate concentration was likely to increase to 3.9 mg/L, with 59 percent of all wells breaching the MAV.

Despite the report’s warning, ECan did not step in to restrict or avoid these conversions. By 2017, only about five percent of the Northern Fan land was still using border dyke irrigation (a decrease from 30 percent in 2014), while spray irrigation covered approximately 84 percent of the land.

Reviewing legislation and policy that was in effect at the time, it appears that ECan had options under the Resource Management Act that it could have used to avoid the large increases in nitrate predicted by the report.

Waimate District Council (WDC) was meeting its responsibilities as a supplier. After detecting nitrate above half of the MAV (5.65mg/L), it followed its legal requirement to implement further monitoring. A real time monitor was introduced, which was useful but could not prevent the breach that had already been set in motion years earlier. By August 2022, nitrate levels had breached the MAV and the council issued a do-not-drink notice, providing the community with a temporary alternative drinking water supply in tanks at three locations.

Taumata Arowai, the new national drinking water regulator, was notified of the breach. Beyond this, it is unclear what role Taumata Arowai took or is taking. To date, the only public statement made on the breach was that their role is to: “Ensure drinking water supplied to residents was safe but it was not involved in establishing causes of contamination. It was comfortable with the council’s handling of the issue.

“If drinking water quality was impacted by a consent issued by a regional council a review of the conditions of a consent could be requested[...] There could also be other actions possible under the Resource Management Act to address adverse environmental effects.”

However, it doesn’t appear to be investigating the contamination further, or seeking a review of consents. Neither the drinking water regulator nor ECan appears to be taking adequate action to address the cause of the contamination, leaving the supply vulnerable to future breaches.

A large braided river and adjacent groundwater system. These rivers have formed the extensive alluvial plains and have significant recharges to and discharges from the groundwater systems.

ECan emphasised in its public statements that heavy rain drove the exceedance. While they did identify intensive farming as a contributor, their wording stressed a steady increase in nitrate in groundwater over decades rather than the reasonably dramatic increase in the case of the Lower Waihao scheme documented from 2015 to the time of the exceedance.

To our knowledge, they have not acknowledged that they predicted this outcome.

WDC lifted the do-not-drink notice in December 2022, reporting that the nitrate level had reduced to 38mg/L (8.6mg/L nitrate nitrogen) and stating that following months of observation, monitoring and ongoing tests, recent results have now shown the water to be consistently within the acceptable MAV limits, meeting the drinking water standards and proving safe to consume.

WDC has committed to installing a denitrification unit for the Lower Waihao scheme, the final cost of which is yet to be determined. In one report, the council suggests it may cost up to $750,000 to install, plus operational costs.

However, a scoping report produced for another Canterbury district found that construction of a small denitrification plant could be almost eight times higher, in the region of $6 million, and cost a further $360,000 per year to run. For the 600 people on the Lower Waihao scheme, this means at minimum set up costs could be $1250 per resident but could be up to $10,000 per resident, plus ongoing operational costs.

ECan has said they will not contribute to any costs associated with denitrification as they are not responsible for the treatment of water.

These costs, and the potential health risks, will be passed on to communities from private interests because of a failure of regulators to prioritise the safety of source water.

Why is the first barrier failing?

Source water protection is our first and most significant barrier against drinking water contamination and illness. With regards to nitrate contamination, it is failing.

Recently published research found that close to 10 percent of 435 groundwater sites sampled nationally had nitrate levels exceeding the MAV and 33 percent of just over 1000 surface and groundwater sites sampled were found to have levels above half the MAV.

Not all regional councils appear to fully understand their responsibilities for source water quality. The government inquiry into the 2016 Havelock North outbreak reported that Hawkes Bay Regional Council initially gave evidence that claimed they did not have any responsibility for the safety or quality of drinking water.

The inquiry explained, “the Regional Council’s resistance to any acceptance of responsibility for drinking water (until late in the Inquiry process) has shown that this goal [to overcome the ‘no responsibility’ mindset of regional councils through policy] was not achieved in its case.”

The inquiry identified six fundamental principles for drinking water safety. Their second principle states that: “Protection of the source of drinking water provides the first, and most significant, barrier against drinking water contamination and illness”. The fifth principle is that: “Suppliers must own the safety of drinking water.”

Taumata Arowai appears to have been largely focused on this fifth principle. The regulator is working to establish a register of suppliers and to assess their drinking water safety plans, which must include source water risk management plans. This is important and Taumata Arowai has inherited alarmingly little useful information on this from the Ministry of Health when it took over this role.

However, as the Waimate breach shows, suppliers do not have the power to restrict land use or activities in a way that protects their source water. So, while the plans may identify land use risks, they can’t act to address them.

Valuable changes were made to the Resource Management Act in 2021 that make it more explicit that regional councils must take source water protection into account when issuing consents. And the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 sets out the Te Mana o Te Wai framework, which states that councils must provide for the health of the environment and drinking water before considering commercial interests.

However, without more systematic processes of holding regional councils to account, suppliers and the public lack the resources to challenge decisions that threaten their source water. Even where larger suppliers do have resources and take an active role in regional planning to further protect source water, appeals for more stringent targets are outweighed by commercial interests.

For example, Christchurch City Council proposed a target of 1mg/L nitrate-nitrogen for the aquifers that provide water for Christchurch City as part of ECan Regional Plan 7.

The commissioners concluded: [W]e are not satisfied that the additional constraint on dairy farming in the Waimakariri catchment that would be necessary to attain the more stringent standard sought

Map showing the affected Waihao supply (white area on map). Source: ECan.

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Flourish chart: Lower waihao drinking water nitrogen.

Regulatory update

Water New Zealand asked both the Ministries of Health and the Environment for an update of the current regulatory environment and any planned changes to the regulations. These were the responses received.

Ministry of Health

Manatū Hauora considers the current maximum acceptable value (MAV) for nitrates is appropriate, and based on the current health evidence does not appear to have adverse health impacts. New Zealand’s MAV for nitrates is consistent with international guidance from the World Health Organisation and the values set by the European Union and Australia.

Manatū Hauora continues to monitor and review the overall body of evidence on nitrates in drinking water, and in light of any compelling evidence would provide policy advice to Taumata Arowai on the MAV.

Taumata Arowai is responsible for overseeing, administering, and enforcing the drinking-water regulatory system including setting the Drinking Water Standards. This includes setting the maximum acceptable value (MAV) for nitrates.

Ministry for the Environment

The National Environmental Standards for sources of human drinking water (NES-DW) set requirements for protecting sources of human drinking water from becoming contaminated.

In early 2022 the Government consulted on proposed amendments to the NES-DW to improve protection of human drinking water sources. The document, from early 2022, Kia kaha ake te tiakina o ngā puna wai-inu Improving the Protection of Drinking Water Sources, is on the ministry’s website along with a further document with amended proposals following feedback.

The Ministry says that final decisions on the proposed amendments to the NES-DW will be made in the coming months and communicated through its website. It says this work aligns with Essential Freshwater programme and provisions of the Water Services Act 2021.

by the City Council would be justified by the evidence tending to show risk of cancer

If suppliers cannot restrict land use and activities to protect source water, and there is a hands-off approach to ensuring regional councils meet their public health responsibilities, then our first barrier is failing. We need to strengthen responsibility and accountability in the system.

Recommendations for protecting water sources

As the Waimate exceedance illustrates, cracks remain in our system that leaves source water and public health vulnerable. Additionally, public health is underrepresented in regional planning and is often not prioritised.

To strengthen responsibility and accountability to protect our communities’ drinking water, we recommend the following actions.

National water regulator Taumata Arowai should:

• Be given a drinking water advocacy function for source water protection (like the Department of Conservation has for conservation), via the Water Services Act.

• Be required to engage in all regional plan making (where Te Mana o Te Wai, the framework established in the NPS-FM and Water Services Act, is given effect).

• Be adequately funded to take proceedings against councils where regional plans or consenting means source water protection is inadequate.

• Commit to incident reports for serious contamination events to inform future water safety plans.

• Revise its monitoring approach so that it can identify early and intervene where more pervasive contaminants like nitrate may be increasing.

• Revise its nitrate MAV based on the precautionary principle, acknowledging the growing body of evidence of human health risks below 11.3mg/L.

National Environmental Standards for Sources of Human Drinking water should be revised to:

• Require regional councils to identify all upstream influences on source water as the drinking water protection zone, not only a small area around the abstraction point, as has been proposed.

• Apply to all potential drinking water supplies, including private supplies, in the catchment, not only those the supplies required to register with Taumata Arowai.

• Provide input (eg irrigation, stocking rates) control rules that can applied immediately where nitrate (or other) contamination has exceeded the MAV.

Medical Officers of Health should be required to engage regional planning processes to advocate for their region’s public health needs.

Ministry for the Environment should be given the resources to take proceedings against councils where regional planning is inconsistent with the law.

The authors of this article all hail from the Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, and Public Health Communication Centre (PHCC). They are Marnie Prickett (research fellow), Dr Tim Chambers, Dr John Kerr (PHCC science lead); Prof Michael Baker (director of the PHCC); and Prof Simon Hales (codirector of the PHCC).

This article was reprinted with permission from the Public Health Communication Centre. It first appeared in the Public Health Expert Briefing as part of a public health priorities series.

Pivot Irrigator.

PHOTO COURTESY OF: DAVID BROOKS.

Regional council must act on deadly botulism outbreaks

The latest outbreak of the deadly bacteria, which produces a toxin that can paralyse and kill birds, follows multiple and increasing outbreaks during summers in and around the Waikato region over the past decade.

Poor water quality and changes to water flows as a result of human activities contributes to low oxygen levels, creating the perfect growing conditions for this bacteria. This results in fish dying, followed by birds before the botulism spreads to other surrounding wetland environments.

Covering almost 7000 hectares in Waikato, Whangamarino wetland is recognised by the Ramsar Convention as a significant global wetland worthy of protection and conservation.

It is the second largest freshwater wetland in the North Island and was chosen as one of three nationally significant wetland sites in the Department of Conservation’s Arawai Kākāriki wetlands restoration programme.

Fish & Game New Zealand chief executive Corina Jordan says the outbreak is an appalling situation.

“This has had a massive impact on fish and bird populations in these wetlands, and we have grave concerns for the welfare of the wider bird populations in the area.

“Parts of this wetland have been without oxygen for the best part of three months, leading to massive aquatic deaths of even the hardiest freshwater species such as eels. This isn’t normal in healthy freshwater wetland systems.

“There have been long-term systemic failures in freshwater policies and a lack of implementation that has caused severe degradation in our freshwater ecosystems. Lake Waikare, one of the Southern Hemisphere’s most polluted lakes, has also been diverted into the wetland as part of the flood control scheme, which is adding even more nutrients to the wetland.

“While there’s no quick fix, the Waikato Regional Council needs to take a really hard look at how the system is managed and

limit discharges into these waterways to help decrease the likelihood and severity of these incidents continuing to occur in the future.”

Corina says degradation of waterways and associated environments, coupled with predictions of longer hotter summers, means these types of botulism outbreaks are likely to become more common.

David Klee, Fish & Game’s southern game bird manager for the Auckland/Waikato region, says the situation is grim.

“Botulism is symptomatic of severely degraded ecosystems and this area is being adversely impacted by human activity to the point where its resilience is severely compromised.

“Fish & Game, the Department of Conservation, mana whenua, and hunter volunteers, in conjunction with contractors, have recovered close to 1500 dead birds and rescued hundreds of sick ones from the wetland, an important step in trying to minimise the size and scale of the outbreak.

“It is an appalling situation both in terms

of animal welfare and the environmental impact.

“It really is ambulance at the bottom of the cliff stuff.  Until we see a huge paradigm shift in how we treat our freshwater environments, these situations will continue to occur.

“Whilst the flood events this summer have exacerbated the issues in Whangamarino, this is not an isolated incident and they are increasing in ferocity.”

Ngati Naho Trust CEO Haydn Solomon has been assisting in the clean-up operations and is concerned by the lack of action being taken.

“Our whanau want answers from authorities, not excuses.  We are tired of the hui with consultants that lack followthrough or hollow speeches from our leaders or mayors that go nowhere.

“Our waterways are getting hammered. Our wetlands, lakes, rivers and springs are at breaking point, yet nothing substantive and meaningful is done.”

Article provided by Fish & Game

An outbreak of avian botulism in Waikato’s Whangamarino wetland has killed thousands of waterfowl including some rare indigenous species.

The latest outbreak of the deadly bacteria botulism, which produces a toxin that can paralyse and kill birds, follows multiple and increasing outbreaks during summers in and around the Waikato region over the past decade.

In numbers: New Zealand’s wild summer weather

It has been a summer to remember, but not in a good way. February 2023 will go down as the month that we experienced one of our worst weather disasters.

By Ben Noll, meteorologist/forecaster at NIWA.

In February, Cyclone Gabrielle caused historic extreme rainfall and river flooding, catastrophic wind damage, and substantial storm surges across the North Island. Unfortunately, this culminated in widespread destruction and loss-of-life, with a long and costly recovery ahead.

Rainfall

February rainfall was nothing short of exceptional, with parts of the North Island receiving at least 400 percent of their normal February rainfall. Napier had its third wettest month since records began, receiving over 600 percent of its normal (and 45 percent of its annual normal).

The highest one-day rainfall was 316mm, recorded at Tūtira (Hawke’s Bay) on February 13. However, in parts of the South Island, rainfall was below (50-79 percent) or even well below normal (more than 50 percent), as was seen in Fiordland.

Summer rainfall was also noteworthy, with the second wettest summer on record for the North Island.

The Auckland region received over 5.5 times its normal summer rainfall and 63 percent of the entire annual normal, and it was the

wettest summer on record for several major centres, including Napier, Auckland, Whangārei, Gisborne, and Tauranga.

Meanwhile, it was the fifth driest summer on record for the South Island. Meteorological drought developed in Otago during February, with many areas recording less than half of their normal summer rainfall.

Pressure

Extreme low-pressure readings speak to Cyclone Gabrielle’s power. February 14 saw air pressure dip to 968 hPa at Whitianga in the Coromandel Peninsula, the second lowest daily minimum value observed in the North Island since 1960.

Soil moisture

This was a tale of two halves: At the end of February, soil moisture levels were well above normal across most of the North Island and in parts of Marlborough and Canterbury, while soil moisture levels in the northern West Coast, western Tasman, the Mackenzie Basin, and Southland were below normal.

Wind

Cyclone Gabrielle brough destructive winds. Eighteen locations observed a record or near-record high summer wind gust. The highest wind gust was 150kph, observed at Mokohinau Islands on February 12.

Temperatures

It was not only wet, but warm. The nationwide average temperature in February 2023 was 18.5°C, 1.1°C above the 1991-2020 February average. Temperatures in the West Coast were particularly noteworthy, being the warmest February on record for Greymouth, Westport, and Arapito.

Greymouth recorded seven days with a daily maximum temperature above 25˚C (between 1972-2000, Greymouth only had six total February days when the temperature exceeded 25˚C).

The highest temperature was 35.6°C, observed at Middlemarch (Otago) on 4 February.

It was the 3rd warmest summer on record with 65 locations experiencing record or near-record warm minimum temperatures.

Marine heatwave

New Zealand’s waters are also part of the picture.

Summer sea surface temperatures were record breaking (since at least 1982) in the west of the South Island. In the north and east of the South Island, summer sea surface temperatures were second highest on record.

Sunshine

The sunniest four locations so far in 2023 are Central Otago (562.6 hours), West Coast (548.6 hours), Mackenzie Basin (545.4 hours), Queenstown Lakes District (526.7 hours). It was sunny in the west, with the sunshine hours in Hokitika twice as much as those in Dannevirke and Dargaville.

The ‘why’ behind the weather.

Typical of La Niña summers, higher-than-normal air pressure was observed to the east and south of New Zealand, with lower-than-

Mill Flat Road bridge, Riverhead.

normal air pressure to the north and west. This resulted in more easterly and northeasterly winds than usual, drawing in warm and humid air from the tropics and sub-tropics.

This partly explains why persistently wet and cloudy weather was experienced in northern and eastern parts of both Islands, with sunnier and drier conditions in the west and south of both islands.

Exacerbating the warmth, humidity, and moisture availability to passing low pressure systems was a protracted marine heatwave

(MHW) that peaked during January and rivalled the MHWs of 2017-2018 and 2021-2022.

Climate change

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which leads to heavier rainfall totals – NIWA scientists are contributing to an attribution study on the influence that climate change had on Gabrielle. More details will become available soon.

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A flooded street in Epsom, Auckland, January 28, 2023

STORMWATER TREATMENT IS GOING GREEN

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Stormwater360 LiveRoof at Mt Difficulty, Bannockburn. Installed in 2012, Photographed 2023.

Online atlas provides understanding of marine life and habitats

Researchers have developed New Zealand’s most comprehensive online atlas, providing an overview of nearly 600 marine species, to guide management and conservation of the country’s unique seafloor communities.

Our marine region spans more than 4.2 million square kilometres of the South Pacific Ocean with a high number of endemic seafloor species, but data gaps and remote areas make it difficult to map and manage the rich diversity of seafloor life.

To fill that knowledge gap, NIWA and the Department of Conservation produced the Atlas of Seabed Biodiversity, a freely available online tool for resource managers, researchers and the public to address the environmental issues faced by subtidal ecosystems.

Other countries already use similar online tools, including Ireland’s Marine Atlas, the Oregon Coastal Atlas, the European Atlas of the Seas, and the atlas for marine biodiversity conservation in the  Coral Triangle.

The New Zealand atlas project was led by ecologists Fabrice Stephenson, formerly of NIWA but now at the University of Waikato, Tom Brough from NIWA, and 25 taxonomists and ecologists from around the country.

Tom says the atlas provides a detailed understanding of hotspots for key marine species, such as those which are threatened or in decline. It can also show areas of ‘species richness’, the number of species within a defined region.

“It is hoped that the atlas will provide invaluable information for Māori organisations, government agencies and territorial authorities with responsibilities or aspirations for the protection of seafloor ecosystems.

“Knowing where species are distributed is vital for making evidence-based decisions on ocean and coastal management.”

The atlas was created by pooling national data sets on marine life to develop species distribution models, or SDMs, which predict the occurrence of marine life in relation to environmental variables.

SDMs can provide estimates of biodiversity patterns where data are sparse and it is a method widely used in marine spatial planning, impact assessment and customary management.

The atlas uses SDMs to provide an overview of predictions for 579 species of demersal fish, reef fish, subtidal invertebrates, and macroalgae or seaweed.

It is hosted on the DOC Marine Data Portal (arcgis.com) which also features other online maps for habitat classification, hydrology, protected areas and species. People can use it to view information about a particular species or location.

“The SDMs in this database incorporated the best available information on seafloor species at the time of its development,” the project researchers said in a report.

Modellers have tested the accuracy of the predictions and this information is provided alongside the predicted species distribution models.

The atlas provides a broad scale indication of where species are likely to occur.

But the models used do not consider seasonal or decadal variation in environmental conditions or the human impact on the environment which may influence biodiversity patterns.

“However, substantial gaps in our knowledge of some taxa and in some areas of our large Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ) still exist, and the atlas will be updated when new information becomes available,” project researchers say.

Surveys of remote areas of the EEZ and areas deeper than 2000 metres are ongoing and will yield valuable new information on the presence and absence of seafloor taxa that can be used to update the SDMs.

The next phase of the research will aim to develop models of where species are likely to occur under future climatic conditions, involving taxonomic experts, collection managers and ecological modellers.

Kirstie Knowles, DOC Marine Ecosystems Manager, says we want to make all this information available for everyone to use –“and it will be continually updated with new research, becoming an access point for marine ecosystem data. This should make marine protection decisions more transparent, accessible, and efficient.”

Article provided by NIWA.

Top: A screen picture of the Atlas tool showing a species distribution model for John Dory, NIWA. Above: Distribution of Sea Stars and other subtidal invertebrates can be investigated on the new online atlas tool.

PHOTO: MALCOLM CLARK / NIWA.

Small Taranaki wetland making a big difference

Taranaki farmers Donna and Philip Cram are helping DairyNZ demonstrate how constructed wetlands can improve water quality.

A wetland built three years ago on Donna and husband Philip’s Awatuna, South Taranaki, farm is a collaboration between DairyNZ, NIWA and Taranaki Regional Council. It is part of DairyNZ’s ongoing work to encourage farmers to understand the environmental benefits of wetlands.

Wetlands can significantly reduce nutrient and sediment losses on farms and improve water quality. They also boost biodiversity and can provide habitat for birds and fish. DairyNZ is sharing options to support water quality, including wetlands on-farm.

DairyNZ general manager sustainable dairy Dr David Burger says there’s growing interest among dairy farmers in reestablishing and constructing wetlands, and this project helps improve understanding of how well they work.

“Partnering with dairy farmers and sector organisations helps us improve practical guidance around the use of constructed wetlands and how they can support the drive towards water quality improvements,” he says.

NIWA and the council are monitoring the performance of Donna and Philip’s wetland to remove nitrogen, phosphorus, sediment, and E. coli . DairyNZ funded the installation of monitoring systems, which enable real-time measurements of flow and water quality at the wetland inlet and outlet.

The project started after initial discussions between Donna, Philip and the council, which then approached NIWA for advice and assistance with design. The project grew because, it turned out, NIWA was collaborating with DairyNZ to produce guidance on constructed wetland design and performance, to give the rural sector tools and resources to help improve environmental outcomes.

The Cram wetland has become one of six

constructed wetland demonstration sites being studied until June 2024 as part of a collaborative, NIWA-led initiative funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

“NIWA staff looked at our farm and where the slopes and run off were, and came up with the site, which was an old, adjusted stream,” Donna says.

The wetland comprises two percent (0.45 hectares) of Donna and Philip’s 117 hectare farm and receives surface and shallow groundwater from 184 hectares of land.

“It’s a nice place to be, with amazing views of Mt Taranaki.

“We have a path round half of it and later on we’ll do it all the way around. We have a bit of regenerating bush at the bottom

of the wetland that was inaccessible for animals, so there is quite a lot of change happening in that area of the farm.”

Dairy farmers around New Zealand are focused on continuing to reduce their environmental impact. Dr Burger says DairyNZ continues to work closely with dairy farmers and other science organisations to increase understanding of wetland performance.

“We are committed to improving water quality and have an extensive range of work underway to achieve this goal, in line with the sector’s Dairy Tomorrow goal of protecting and nurturing the environment for future generations.”

Article provided by DairyNZ

Philip and Donna Cram.

When every drop counts

For over 90 years ADR has been there for New Zealand water authorities and Councils with our fieldsmart technology.

From metering to control systems to pump controllers, we offer insight and expertise in the technology that helps you manage water and waste water to a high standard, with resources that are always limited. www.adriley.co.nz

Digital water meter solution to better service commercial properties

Watercare has started rolling out smart loggers on water meters for commercial premises in Auckland to better manage water usage across the city, save on manual reads and improve billing accuracy for commercial premises.

It’s part of a complete, managed service solution designed by Spark IoT that includes a device and SIM management platform to make it much easier to manage devices and data at scale. Currently, 3300 water meters have been logged and connected on the Spark NB-IoT network to provide usage information to Watercare, with an additional 2500 meters to be logged.

Watercare’s smart network lead Nish Dogra says this technology has the potential to improve water management across the country.

“Water is one of the most essential resources on Earth, and yet it is also one of the most undervalued, so it is vital to give more consideration towards how it is sourced, treated, and distributed – with technology being a key enabler of these processes.

“The new smart meters mean we can focus on efficiency gains thanks to having near real-time data across the connected nonresidential properties, which provide a detailed overview of their water use. Faults and leaks are more easily identified and fixed, leading to cost and water savings across the board.

“The data has already helped us to identify a number of large leaks on our customers’ premises, which we’ve flagged with them so they can fix them quickly. For example, one school’s water use had skyrocketed from about 6000 litres a day to more than 70,000. There was no obvious water leaking on the grounds, but a specialist leak detection agency was called in and they found a massive leak under volcanic rock that was losing about 46 litres every minute.

“Identifying that leak early saved thousands of litres of water –and saved the school hundreds of dollars in their water bill.”

Watercare supplies more than 400 million litres of water to Auckland every day, drawing water from 27 sources.

“By integrating IoT technology with the water management processes, operators can be warned faster of potential process issues, detect leaks more easily and improve distribution.”

Spark’s principal innovation business development manager Matt McLay says the new technology will play a greater role in how Watercare and its customers manage water, to significantly improve efficiency and sustainability by transitioning to a smart water meter network.

“We’re bringing together the best of smart water metering technology to help Watercare and its customers better monitor their water use efficiency, optimise billing accuracy, promote more efficient consumption and deliver maximum value to businesses.

“Our new NB-IoT network is the perfect connectivity fit because it provides wide reliable coverage and is suited to battery-

powered metering systems that send small amounts of data. On top of this, we’ve activated NB-IoT connectivity across our cell sites to provide around 90 percent population coverage.”

Research analysis commissioned by Spark IoT and undertaken by NERA Economic Consulting shows that water metering solutions can provide a potential net benefit of $28 million in market across a 10-year period up to 2027 from efficiencies and cost savings.

Article provided by Watercare

The new smart meters mean we can focus on efficiency gains thanks to having near real-time data across the connected non-residential properties, which provide a detailed overview of their water use. Faults and leaks are more easily identified and fixed, leading to cost and water savings across the board.

Serving the New Zealand Water Industry since 1938.

Serving the New Zealand Water Industry since 1938.

Serving the New Zealand Water Industry since 1938.

Serving the New Zealand Water Industry since 1938.

Serving the New Zealand Water Industry since 1938.

Identifying and managing our seascape

By James Bentley, senior principal landscape architect, and Sue McManaway, principal landscape planner, Boffa Miskell.

The sea, as a connected and contrasting element to the land, forms a critical part of our understanding of the world, and our place within it. As such, our understanding of landscape does not stop at the beach. Seascape is the term that embraces this expanded, integrated view; and the obvious place to begin exploring our relationship with the ocean around us.

While the term ‘seascape’ is not new in Aotearoa New Zealand, it is little-understood. Seascapes are a subset of the landscapes that make up our marine and coastal environments; like landscape, they reflect the relationship between people and place. Further, like landscape, they require a level of protection and management in response to different characteristics and values.

Under the Aotearoa New Zealand Landscape Assessment Guidelines (2022), produced by the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects and named ‘Te Tangi a te Manu’, landscape is defined as the following: ‘Landscape embodies the relationship between people and place. It is the character of an area, how the area is experienced and perceived, and the meanings associated with it’.

The term ‘seascape’ has some traction because it is referred to in the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) Policy 15, which directs: “…the protection of natural features and natural landscapes (including seascapes) of the coastal environment from inappropriate subdivision, use and development…”

Landscapes in the coastal environment continue below the water — they do not stop at the shoreline or sea’s surface. They include references to marine bedrock geology and topography, bathymetry, species biodiversity, cultural heritage and aesthetics.

Seascape assessments are not the same as natural character assessments in the marine environment.

Overseas guidance on seascape assessments and seascape sensitivity have assisted in approaches to better understanding the sea from a landscape perspective in Aotearoa New Zealand, to date.

Living on a group of islands, inevitably we have strong links with the coast and sea; seascapes are an important part of our culture and our identities; additionally, they support our economies and quality of life. Therefore, the pressure for development on our coasts and in our oceans is a real issue – which means the need to understand these coastal and marine environments from a landscape perspective, is both urgent and complex.

Drawing on the well-established, predominantly land-focussed Landscape Assessment toolkit, ‘seascape assessment’ is emerging as a method for characterising, mapping, describing, and assessing seascape character and values; including whether there are areas that merit specific protection from “inappropriate subdivision, use and development”  under the RMA and the NZCPS.

The way in which a landscape or seascape can absorb further change or development is described as the seascape’s sensitivity — or its resilience to

the pressures or ‘threats’ from certain kinds of activity. Sensitivity means “the susceptibility of a landscape’s values to the potential effects of certain kinds of activity”.

The upcoming Climate Adaptation Act will place a particular focus on our relationships with our coasts and seascapes. We are only beginning to understand the human impacts of climate change within our coastal environments.

Different seascapes will be sensitive to different pressures due to the distinctions in their particular combination of attributes and values. Therefore, the ability to understand the characteristics and values of seascapes is critical.

Being a marine-focussed nation, we use our seascapes in a number of broad ways, from ports and marinas to fishing, boating and swimming. Aquaculture is one of the common development activities in our waters; it has grown rapidly and looks set to keep on expanding. Offshore energy projects are another sector in which we are beginning to utilise our seas. The major threat to seascape values is not necessarily the activity itself; but its location, nature, scale, design or management.

A Seascape study represents a core component of the evidence base needed for coastal and marine spatial planning and policy formulation around aquaculture, not just by identifying the most special or outstanding seascapes, but by teasing out the specific attributes to be protected.

Seascape Assessments offer a robust platform for a finer grained ‘susceptibility’ or ‘issue-based’ assessment, (such as a NZCPS Policy 8 assessment of ‘appropriateness’ of aquaculture in Outstanding Natural Landscapes).

In an area considered susceptible to aquaculture pressures for example, findings could address where to site new developments, whether or not existing developments could be increased, or where existing developments should be removed to improve seascape character and values.

While we look at land and can see the changes, we often pay less attention to the marine environment. Seascape studies are helping to fill the gaps in our understanding and guiding how development can respond sensitively to the quality and variety of our coastal landscapes.

Having undertaken numerous seascape assessments for a number of regional councils and unitary authorities, we believe that comprehensively identifying seascape values and their characteristics will assist consistency in understanding how to manage and protect our seas. Working closely with councils in developing policy direction will provide a level of certainty for all. Additional concerns around climate change also amplify thinking in this space.

Pressure for development and change will undoubtedly put the spotlight on our seas, and with critical understanding, we can together appreciate the seascape as more than just the edge of the landscape.

A legal update on weather events, wetlands, and water reform

By Helen Atkins, director, and Amelia Scharting, solicitor, Atkins Holm

Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill on 27 March 2023, to further support recovery and rebuild efforts throughout the North Island.

Minister Kieran McAnulty stated that the new bill would provide the “flexibility necessary to allow communities and local government, supported by the Government, to respond quickly to issues that occur during recovery efforts without needing to anticipate every power or statutory provision that may need to be amended…”

The major purpose of this bill is to support local authorities and their communities in the areas most affected by the severe weather.

Over the past months, we have seen the full effects of severe weather as the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle continues to be felt throughout the North Island, and some regions have been further hit by scattered tornadoes. This article deals with the legislative outcomes of those events, as well as discussing recent case law developments in the water management space. We also provide an update on the Water Reform Reset, with the announcement of the Government’s reprioritised reform policy.

Severe weather legislation

As a result of Cyclones Hale and Gabrielle, as well as the Auckland Anniversary Floods, the Government has introduced two pieces of legislation which extend emergency services’ powers, enabling better response to extreme weather events.

First, the Government introduced the Severe Weather Emergency Legislation Act to address recovery efforts. The Act was passed on 20 March 2023, and is intended to remove unnecessary red tape, allowing for a more streamlined recovery and rebuild, and draws on experience gained following the Christchurch Earthquakes.

As an omnibus piece of legislation, the Act amends numerous other statutes to better enable recovery efforts. Effects of the amendments include:

a. Allowing owners or occupiers of rural land to take emergency or preventative remedial work until 1 April 2024, to allow for work during dry conditions;

b. Providing a lengthy timeframe for relevant authorities to grant consents;

c. Protections for culturally significant sites, so that emergency works do not occur without prior written consent;

d. Ensuring that permitted activities cannot result in significant adverse effects outside of the landowner’s property bounds; and

e. Allowing for remote attendance at local authority meetings and committees.

Following this, the Government then introduced the Severe Weather

Among other methods to provide and assist in recovery, the bill allows for the temporary flexibility of certain legislative requirements, therefore reducing obstacles which hard-hit communities may otherwise face. Several controls are also included in the bill to ensure that actions taken under its provisions are balanced appropriately.

The Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Bill underwent an extremely short consultation period, with submissions closing on 29 March 2023. As this article is being written, the Select Committee is yet to report back on the submissions process.

Case law update

Two pieces of recent case law further expand the precedents surrounding freshwater policy, and the ongoing Three Waters Reforms.

Page v Greater Wellington Regional Council [2023] NZCA 20

This case was an application seeking leave to bring a second appeal against a District Court decision. Mr Page and Ms Crosbie (the Applicants), had been convicted of 35 offences under the Resource Management Act (RMA) for allowing cattle access to wetlands, disturbing wetlands, undertaking earthworks in waterbodies, depositing soil on a riverbed, taking water, and depositing substances into water or where they could enter water.

Further to such offences, the Applicants had breached numerous abatement notices and enforcement orders, leading to a further nine abatement notices charges, alongside one enforcement order charge. Following conviction, Page was sentenced to three months imprisonment and Crosbie was fined a total of $118,782.

The appeal sought leave to bring fresh evidence from two experts on the grounds that to disallow this evidence would be a miscarriage of justice. An issue of late disclosure of evidence was also raised by the Applicants.

The Applicants noted that the judge in the District Court had accepted the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s (GWRC) evidence established the existence of natural wetlands on the Applicants property beyond reasonable doubt. The evidence threshold in this case was to the criminal standard of beyond

Left: Helen Atkins and Amelia Scharting.

Majurey.

reasonable doubt, given the offences and potential sentences at play.

The Applicants argued that their experts could prove there was insufficient evidence to establish to this standard that wetlands were present on the site, and this evidence should be explored.

In addition, the same experts for the GWRC had presented evidence in Adams v Greater Wellington Regional Council, another freshwater management case from 2022 which expanded on the meaning of wetlands.

In Adams the Court did not accept the evidence provided by GWRC and its experts, instead being persuaded by the other experts in that case. The Applicants argued that this provided further indications as to the quality of evidence presented by the GWRC, and that this added more weight to the need to have counterevidence presented.

The appellate judge ultimately found in favor of the Applicants, stating that: “The absence of such evidence together with the late disclosure so close to the trial date is concerning, particularly when the applicants were self- represented and had technological difficulties with soft data.”

The Court found that the absence of any expert challenge to the Respondent’s experts had a significant impact on the outcome of the trial, and that this ultimately amounted to a miscarriage of justice. Hence, leave to appeal was granted, despite the evidence not qualifying as ‘fresh’ evidence.

This case is notable on two counts. First, and of broad interest, the initial penalty of imprisonment for breaches of the RMA related to protected wetlands demonstrates just how seriously such breaches can be treated. Wetlands are recognised as a key component of a healthy national ecosystem, and a willingness towards strict sentencing shows landowners that their obligations under new policy frameworks will be rigorously upheld.

Secondly, and of interest more specifically to the freshwater management sphere, the granting of leave to appeal shows how much weight courts are willing to place on expert evidence and its quality.

The Court noted that the GWRC’s evidence on hydrology was accepted by the trial judge by virtue of there being no evidence to the contrary presented by the Applicants. Judges rely on expert evidence to guide their understanding of material facts. Hence, the ability for parties to present their own expert evidence is vital in ensuring a fair and just trial, and a well-informed decision.

Timaru District Council v Minister for Local Government [2023] NZHC 244

In amongst the responses to the Three Waters Reforms, three local government entities sought a declaratory judgment from the High Court regarding the status quo of ownership of council assets. As currently proposed, the Three Waters Reform proposes to shift the responsibility to manage three waters assets, and deliver water services into four [now 10] new entities, which straddle broad geographic zones. Water services infrastructure will be held by each new Water Services Entity on behalf of the communities it represents.

The Government describes this new ownership system as a continuation of publicly held assets, while opponents of the reform consider that this change in structure amounts to unlawful confiscation away from councils.

The Timaru, Whangārei, and Waimakariri District Councils (together the Councils) took their opposition to the High Court, seeking a declaratory judgment as to the status of infrastructure ownership, and the democratic function of local government.

Courts can make declaratory judgments on points of law, where the parties are not seeking a specific resolution to a dispute, but instead wish to clarify a current legal position. Parties supply declarations to the Court for their consideration, which if accepted are folded into case law on the topic. If the Councils’ declarations were accepted, the proposed reforms may then be in breach of the law.

The Councils sought three broad declarations (termed declarations A, B, and C), each with several sub-paragraphs which expanded on the main principle. Broadly, the declarations covered the principle that local government is a core component of democracy (declaration A), that there are several principles and features of local government (declaration B), and that Councils have certain rights of ownership in relation to infrastructure assets (declaration C).

The Crown opposed the declarations sought by the Councils, arguing that the declarations were too broad, that their purpose was to influence ongoing legislative processes, and that, because the declarations sought to clarify points of law which are already wellunderstood by Parliament, they lacked overall utility.

After establishing that it held jurisdiction to consider the case, the Court turned to the declaratory relief sought by each of the statements from the Councils, and whether this should be granted through discretion. The Court accepted that democratic governance is a core principle of our legal system, but agreed with the Crown that declarations A and B did not accurately reflect the principle in action. Most powers of local government stem from legislation, hence they are subject to amendments by further legislative action.

The Court also held that the declarations as drafted were “too general, and therefore inaccurate to reflect the full framework of local government ownership rights in respect of infrastructure assets”.

Regarding declaration C, the Court affirmed that Parliament may abrogate property rights, provided there is clear intention to do so, alongside acceptance of potential political fallout from such action. The Court held such intention had been demonstrated.

Additionally, the Court considered the declarations infringed upon the principle of legislative non-interference, and were not informative in any event.

The Court concluded that the declarative relief sought by the Councils should not be granted.

Water reform reset

Finally, we note that at the time of writing, the Government has just announced its updated three waters reform policies. The reset sees a move towards greater local representation, with the new water services entities increasing from the four originally proposed ‘mega-entities’, to 10 new entities which better enable community input.

These new entities are touted as the best middle ground between achieving economy of scale, and retaining connections between the entities and the people they represent. Instead of coming into effect in mid-2024, the new regime will instead roll out between 2025 and 2026, allowing more time for the reform to be gotten right.

Other aspects of the water reform programme remain largely unchanged, with the Government instead looking to focus on a change in messaging on contentious points such as co-governance.

Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty states that the proposed changes to the reform have taken into account the thousands of submissions received during the submissions process, and comments that his discussions with local authorities and councils shows general support for the updates.

Managing stormwater and wastewater network discharges –challenges in the consenting space

By

The need for significant investment in our three waters infrastructure to improve levels of service and environmental outcomes is well recognised. Among the necessary workstreams is lifting the performance of wastewater and stormwater networks, including to improve the quality of discharged stormwater and reduce the frequency or volume of wastewater network overflows.

That is by no means an easy task. It requires significant technical input, ongoing investment, and likely decades of work. Even reaching consensus as to the appropriate ‘level of service’ or performance standards between the community, mana whenua, asset owners, and ratepayers (or water users) will be difficult, requiring extensive and ongoing engagement.

In addition, this work needs to be supported by regulatory approvals under the Resource Management Act (RMA), or its likely successor the Natural and Built Environments Act (NBEA).

However, as confirmed in Water New Zealand’s recent National Performance Review, the regulation of stormwater discharges and particularly wastewater network overflows remains patchy at best, with a variety of approaches around the country.

In legal terms, any discharge of a ‘contaminant’ to (fresh or coastal) water, or onto land where it is likely to enter water, if it is not ‘permitted’ in the relevant regional plan requires a resource consent (called a ‘discharge permit’, or a ‘coastal permit’ if it occurs in the coastal marine area).

Despite this, not all stormwater discharges are consented, and only a handful of councils have obtained, or are in the process of seeking, resource consents for wastewater ‘wet weather overflows’.

In most cases wastewater network discharges (which occur periodically even in well-performing networks) are currently unauthorised.

For many councils (or the new entities), consenting the discharges that already occur will be a necessary first step to investing in improvements over time (through long term consents

that require progressive reductions or improvements).

Obtaining consent achieves regulatory compliance, enables (and/ or requires) investment in improved outcomes, and encourages greater transparency. From that perspective, barriers to consents being granted can also be barriers to improvements being made.

This article examines some of the challenges to securing planning approval for network discharges, particularly in relation to wastewater, and outlines the policy and legislative changes that are needed to enable and support the necessary improvements to this infrastructure.

Inherent challenges

Obtaining so called ‘global’ consents for the discharges from an entire network is quite different to consenting more traditional projects like new water reservoirs or treatment plants.

Some of the key challenges include:

Available information: The level of information about the discharges (locations, volumes, and contaminant loads) and their effects will often be less than what would be available for a wastewater treatment plant discharge, for example.

The interventions to drive improvements will generally need to be developed over time, rather than presented at the application stage (a framework for approaching this is provided in the Good Practice Guidelines outlined in the March/April issue of Water). It may be necessary to use modelling rather than monitoring to assess effects and demonstrate compliance during the life of the consent.

Overall, there will be less detail and certainty of information to support the application than RMA decision makers may be used to (or expect).

Community and mana whenua concerns and aspirations: Wastewater discharges to water will generally be of significant concern to mana whenua, and regarded as culturally abhorrent irrespective of the level of treatment. The wider community is also increasingly seeking substantial improvements in network performance, due to concerns around ecological effects, aesthetic impacts, and public health.

These factors drive expectations for the minimisation or elimination of wastewater discharges and substantial improvements to stormwater. Meeting these expectations and delivering on Te Mana o Te Wai will be an ongoing journey. Investment required: The level of investment required to achieve significant improvements, let alone eliminate wastewater overflows altogether, is significant (billions).

There will be a need for hard conversations regarding the tradeoffs between pursuing community aspirations in this regard vs investing in other aspects of the three waters system (or other council infrastructure, prior to three waters reform).

Left: Ezekiel Hudspith and Hermione Kemp.

Ezekiel Hudspith, partner, and Hermione Kemp, solicitor, Dentons Kensington Swan.

Timing of investment: The level of funding required for long term improvements is likely to exceed the amounts available in short term funding cycles.

This means funding will generally need to be approved periodically over the life of the consent, rather than signed off up front, which may create uncertainty for regulators (regional councils) about the delivery of improvements over time.

Timeframes for improvement: Even putting the question of funding aside, the physical works required to deliver measurable real-world improvements across entire networks will take many years (even decades), due to the sheer scale of the work programme.

It will not be possible to meet desired standards immediately, or in the short term – clearly communicating the realities of this to communities and consent authorities will be important. The need to prioritise: Related to the point above, it will not be possible to improve all areas or catchments at the same time.

Developing a principled basis for sequencing work (e.g. most valuable areas first – or most degraded?), that satisfies both the regulator and affected communities, will be essential.

Challenges with the statutory and policy framework

Unfortunately, these challenges are not made any easier by the present planning and policy framework.

National policy instruments under the RMA are highly restrictive in regulating discharges to water.

For example, the NZ Coastal Policy Statement (NZCPS) directs councils to ‘not allow’ discharges of human sewage to water in the coastal environment without treatment. The National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) creates similar challenges where discharges to freshwater are concerned.

In response to these directions, many regional councils have either provided for wastewater overflows as a ‘prohibited activity’ (such that consent cannot even be applied for), or developed policy frameworks that are not conducive to such consents being granted.

While in most contexts these policy directions are appropriate, they are often expressed in an inflexible way and do not acknowledge the realities of the work required to manage network overflows.

Accordingly, rather than driving higher performance standards and better environmental outcomes once consents are obtained, these provisions risk preventing consent from being obtained in the first place.

The replacement of the RMA with the NBEA (with associated new policy instruments) is a real opportunity for improvement in this space. However, some concerns with the NBEA in this regard include that:

• The NBEA proposes a system of environmental limits and targets being set in the ‘national planning framework’ (NPF) or NBEA plans, with very little scope for exemptions. Activities that do not meet these limits and targets cannot be granted consent. An overly restrictive approach (or lack of exemptions) will mean that discharges cannot be authorised where they cannot comply with limits on ‘day 1’ (or in catchments that are already degraded).

• Other provisions would prevent consent being granted for

activities that have a ‘more than trivial’ effect on ‘places of national importance’ (which are broadly defined to include areas of water with outstanding natural character, outstanding natural features or landscapes, specified cultural heritage, significant biodiversity areas, and areas that provide public access to the coast or water bodies).

• The NBEA will generally impose maximum consent durations of 10 years for discharges. Short consent durations reduce certainty for investment in improvements to the infrastructure, and would in practice likely mean either achieving a lower level of improvement over the life of the consent, or only achieving improvements in some catchments.

• The NBEA sets up a transitional regime (while the NPF and then NBEA plans are developed) whereby the duration of consents granted under the RMA is also limited to 10 years (although at present this would apply to discharge permits but not coastal permits, which would be unwieldy when seeking consents for the whole network).

The way forward

The next year will bring considerable regulatory change, in both the RMA reform and three waters space. Three waters reform (with responsibility for network discharge consents shifting to the new entities) could help address some of the investment challenges outlined above. However, other challenges will remain.

In terms of the issues with the regulatory framework:

Some of these concerns with the NBEA have been raised by the water sector in submissions. The Select Committee is due to report back on 6 June 2023 and the new Act will likely be passed in July. It is possible that the NBEA may be improved (in response to submissions) before it is passed.

There is still much that could be improved under the current RMA policy framework (which will continue to govern consenting processes for several years after the NBEA is passed). This could include changes to the NZCPS and NPS-FM, as well as regional plans, to better recognise the realities of network overflows – and prevent consenting processes from creating barriers to real world improvements.

Going forward, the development of the NPF under the NBEA will be critical. It may provide exemptions to limits so that existing networks can be authorised, perhaps coupled with strong directions for improvement, rather than leaving some networks unauthorised and outside the system.

Taumata Arowai is also in the process of developing ‘wastewater environmental performance standards’, including in relation to network overflows. Initially these will focus on monitoring and reporting, but in the future could provide a set of common expectations and drive greater consistency of approach.

It is hoped that improvements in the policy space will reduce barriers to consent being granted, and enable a mature dialogue about network discharges and how they can best be managed. However, removing policy barriers will not remove the need for hard work, or resolve the other inherent challenges with these kinds of consents.

This means that early and ongoing engagement will remain critical: with regulators, mana whenua, and the wider community, with regard to the scale of the challenge and the search for agreed or acceptable outcomes.

World Water Day 2023 –

making room for water

Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe writes that recent flooding events and the uncertainty of climate change have again shown the need for a more consistent national approach to managing development in areas of high risk.

Globally, we’re facing unprecedented water challenges as population growth and climate change start to impact.

Even in our remote corner of the world, this summer has shown us that we’re not immune to the enormous consequences that climate change will present, and we need to re-think the way we live with water – in both urban and rural environments.

The January flooding and Cyclone Gabrielle was clearly beyond the scope that any council or stormwater utility could be expected to manage with traditional infrastructure and the consequent devastation suffered by so many families and communities was heart breaking.

It was clear that while Auckland may have the title of the world’s spongiest city, it was no match for the extremes of nature that shook the urban infrastructure and environment in January.

Creating and developing more urban sponges in our cities needs to be a vital part of future planning but we need to do more than that.

Water sensitive urban design (WSUD) – daylighting natural streams, planting vegetation to absorb the water and trap sediments and pollutants, minimising impervious surfaces and creating spaces that mimic the natural water cycle, are all integral parts or urban development.

WSUD addresses both water quantity and water quality issues. WSUD draws upon the processes of natural systems and adapts these to suit urban environments. It integrates the processes inherent in water systems with the ‘built environment’ – buildings, infrastructure and landscapes.

Larger-scale green infrastructure like wetlands and basins as well as making room for the river, or flood are also important features of WSUD. For instance, Christchurch has invested in over 100 hectares of basins in the Upper Heathcote to significantly reduce flood risk along the river.

In Auckland the daylighted Awataha Stream and Greenslade Reserve stormwater detention park held up well during the January floods, with much greater capacity than a traditional hard infrastructure network.

But we can’t rely solely on WSUD, sponginess and piped networks. We need to take a much more joined up national approach to planning our urban environment.

Climate change management needs to be part of every council’s strategic, spatial, and operational planning and it needs to be done in a nationally consistent manner.

For instance, we need nationally consistent direction on managing and restricting development in areas of high or increasing risk such as flood plains and overland flow paths.

This needs to be backed up by more stringent enforcement of planning rules. In many places, existing planning rules aimed at preventing building in high hazard zones are weak or have been overruled when challenged by developers while the advice of stormwater and planning

experts have been ignored.

Equity issues arise in communities vulnerable to flooding because low median household incomes make it more difficult for local authorities to fund the protection work needed through rates.

We need to stop allowing short-term, quick return thinking to influence decisions about housing that will be in those areas for decades, if not centuries.

Integrated catchment

It will be crucial for the regulators, local government organisations and the water services entities to work together to ensure an integrated catchment approach for all infrastructure for the benefit of our communities.

Integrated catchment planning manages water resources and land use on a catchment scale.

With the increasing intensification and natural and physical constraints on land use, and the increasing demand for water, the integrated management of land use and the three waters is becoming more and more critical.

Effective integrated catchment planning and management is paramount if we are to improve water quality, reduce over-allocation, manage land change effects and reduce natural hazard risk.

There is a need for the new spatial planning legislation (the Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning bills) to be mindful about stormwater resilience and to taking a more co-ordinated, future focused approach to planning and development.

We need to be much more proactive through the identification of hazard areas to inform both location and the design of future developments and infrastructure and areas requiring adaptation and avoidance.

National approach

In order to plan better, we will need to increase our understanding and ensure a more consistent approach to modelling and mapping climate change and risks. How often are these storms likely to occur? How will more frequent and longer droughts affect drinking water supply? How big are they likely to get? How can we design smart, resilient infrastructure and cities to cope with them?

A consistent definition of what is a flood risk and set of national levels of service and measures for flooding will focus funding to address where shortfalls and gaps occur, help inform spatial planning and highlight adaptation priorities and retreat for the most at risk areas.

For example, across Aotearoa New Zealand there are significant variations in status quo stormwater levels of service for stormwater modelling, planning design, and funding. A nationally consistent

suite of levels of services and targets, which allow for local risks and costs, need to be developed and put to decision makers and our communities.

Currently, our inconsistent and haphazard approach and accountability for managing flood risk can too easily hide or overlook problems until there is a major event and we are quick to forget, when it comes to funding stormwater infrastructure shortfalls.

Accountability for stormwater management is often split across agencies or departments within agencies and consequentially can be overlooked by each organisation – until the flood event occurs. A nationally consistent approach would help clarify accountability for flood related outcomes.

Finally, we need to ensure our communities are more informed about their own flood risks.

It’s vital that flood hazard information is freely available, nationally consistent, and transparent.

We have welcomed and fully support the latest moves in the Local

Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill legislation to tackle this serious omission and ensure better national guidance on hazard reporting.

At present, not every land information memorandum [LIM] has information about floods and climate change hazard. Yet, this is vital information for householders and businesses.

It is concerning that many people don’t understand their flood risk and what, for instance, a one in a 100-year flood event means.

People must have information to weigh up the risks so they can make informed decisions about where they live – whether to maintain or invest in their properties or in some cases retreat.

We are facing major challenges and if we are going to be resilient in the face of climate change, a nationally-led approach to stormwater planning and management is necessary to protect public and environmental health and wellbeing.

Te Kukuwai o Toa is a new wetland at Elsdon Park, Porirua. Once established it will support resilient treatment of stormwater runoff from the 40 hectare commercial and residential catchments.

Our relationship with water is political

Climate change is shifting our relationship with water, bringing power and politics into fundamental human rights issues of access and management, argues climate scientist and author Giulio Boccaletti. And as droughts and floods become more commonplace and widespread in a warming planet, the way we think about water as a resource is becoming more pressing.

floods that have hit places like Pakistan and South Korea.

What are some of the biggest challenges around water today?

Maybe the biggest challenge above all others is exactly that – people don’t know what the challenges are – that water is sort of invisible for the vast majority of people, certainly those who live in developed countries.

Ten thousand years ago, we decided to stand still. We became sedentary in a world of moving water. And, ever since, our collective life on the landscape has been shaped by our relationship with water, which is essentially the agent of the climate system on the landscape.

Then, about a century ago, the promise of the modernist world was to separate us from nature, and we’ve re-plumbed the planet. We turned the hydrology of the planet into hydraulics to support industrialisation. And, in doing so, we created an illusion of control. So that today nobody really thinks about water all that much.

But that illusion is breaking, and that’s the biggest challenge today. It’s breaking and things are changing. The climate is on the move and water is changing with it. And we need to relearn what our relationship with water should be.

Why do we need to redefine our relationship with water?

As the climate system is changing, water resurfaces – behind the levees, behind the dams, inside the canals, it’s moving again. And we’ve seen that [in 2022], the spectacular droughts that have hit Europe or the catastrophic

As this happens the biggest risk is that we end up believing that the problem is simply an engineering issue, that somebody somewhere will take care of it. It’s just a matter of spending money.

But 10,000 years of history show us that, in fact, the fundamental question about managing water is political – it is the question of what a home should look like. And that is a quintessentially, intrinsically political question that cannot be dealt with just through engineering. It requires participation and debate, and politics.

We need to learn once again how to engage politically with questions of landscape, with questions of who decides what our home looks like, and who gets to exercise power on the landscape. Because that, in a nutshell, is what dealing with water means.

How can we make access to water more equitable?

The exercise of managing water is ultimately an exercise of power. Somebody needs to build something somewhere in somebody’s backyard to control and manage water resources. And [with that] some will benefit and some will lose.

The costs will be borne disproportionately by those with the least power. We’ve seen this in the dramatic droughts that hit the Horn of Africa in summer 2022 – 20 million people with essentially no political agency unable to mobilise their communities to transform the landscape in ways that protects them.

The same has happened in Pakistan. It’s the powerless that get hit by this.

So, yes, it’s a matter of human rights. And it’s true that we should frame the question of water

as a question of access. But it’s more than that. It’s also a question of exercising sovereignty over the landscape.

Achieving water security is much more than having access to water to drink, it’s about water that serves the purposes of development and of social cohesion.

And in that sense, the most powerful instrument that we have to have a just and equitable outcome is political emancipation. It is the ability of people to be citizens in the management of the landscape in which they live.

How can citizens participate in water management?

We have to recognise that the world of water doesn’t live in the abstract. It’s embedded in a set of issues around welfare, economic development, social equity and so forth. So the key here is to make environmental decision-making and decision-making about the resources of a nation and the resources of a community part of the broader political agenda.

Now, how does that happen? Well, in countries where people have political agency as citizens, then it’s a matter of incorporating the environment and water resources in the political processes and building institutions that allow the state or the governance of the landscape to recognise the problems with water specifically.

We improve the governance of water, not by creating special governance of water, but by embedding water in the economic and social strategy of countries.

Article by Charlotte Edmond, senior writer, Forum Agenda, World Economic Forum

The following is an edited transcript of Giulio’s talk at the World Economic Forum’s Sustainable Development Impact Meetings.

The Water Services Act 2021 (the Act) provides a new regulatory approach and introduces some new responsibilities for drinking water suppliers. Following public consultation, new Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules, Drinking Water Standards, Aesthetic Values and three Acceptable Solutions came into effect for registered suppliers on 14 November 2022.

Unregistered suppliers can relax

Unregistered suppliers have time to find out more and get the advice and support they need. They have up to November 2025 to register with Taumata Arowai and up to November 2028 to fully comply with the Act.

Wai ora. Tangata ora. Healthy water. Healthy people.

For more information

Join us at the Water New Zealand webinars each month where we’ll update you on what you need to know and what’s ahead. There’s always plenty of time to ask questions too. Register at waternz.org.nz

We’re here to help make sure everyone has access to safe and reliable drinking water every day.

Researchers develop new eDNA tool to detect eel

As part of the national programme Lakes380 co-led by Cawthron and GNS Science, researchers have developed a new environmental DNA-based tool to detect tuna (shortfin and longfin eel) in lakes and rivers. This new tool will help to understand the presence and distribution of this taonga species in our waterways.

Tuna are found in lakes and rivers across the country. However, there has been a national decline in their populations due to habitat destruction and commercial harvest. Understanding where they live and how their populations have changed is critical to their protection.

Traditional methods of monitoring tuna, such as nets, visual surveys or electrofishing can be time consuming, costly, and limit the number of surveys that can be undertaken, as well as potentially being environmentally invasive.

To help create a more efficient way of identifying the presence of tuna, Cawthron PhD student Georgia Thomson-Laing has led a research project to develop a new environmental DNA (eDNA) method that can rapidly detect them in water and sediment samples.

“This new method will allow us to undertake surveys for tuna at a resolution and scale not previously possible,” she says.

“This means we can get a much more accurate picture of where tuna populations are declining, so that we can more effectively target these environments for protection or restoration.”

The term environmental DNA refers to traces of DNA collected from environmental samples (such as soil, sediment, water, air). The sources of this DNA vary, but can include DNA shed through faeces, mucous, skin, eggs, or pollen.

Georgia is also using this method to work on lake sediment cores to detect the presence of tuna in the past, which will contribute to understanding how their populations have declined over time.

In addition, Cawthron scientists are involved in research led by Otago University’s Amandine Sabadel and funded by the Royal Society to understand where tuna spawn, and how their larvae are dispersed. Adult tuna leave New Zealand and swim thousands of kilometres across the ocean to spawn somewhere in the western South Pacific Ocean before they die, and the larvae then travel back to grow and mature.

Researchers are using two methods to track migration; one involves identifying chemical markers specific to the local environment that could make it possible to locate an animal at a specific time or place. The second approach, being led by

Cawthron molecular surveillance team leader Xavier Pochon, uses the new eDNA tool to identify the presence or absence of tuna in any given environment.

“eDNA surveillance uses genetic rather than chemical markers, but the two technologies will be integrated to try and track our eels’ migratory pathways and pinpoint their spawning location and to better understand their life-cycle and protect them ,” says Xavier.

The research on the new environmental DNA-based tool to detect tuna has recently been published in an international journal – you can read the full article at peerj.com/articles/12157/

Article provided by Cawthron Institute

eDNA surveillance uses genetic rather than chemical markers, but the two technologies will be integrated to try and track our eels’ migratory pathways and pinpoint their spawning location and to better understand their life-cycle and protect them.

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The science of Fukushima’s treated nuclear wastewater

Japan has recently deferred plans to release more than one million tonnes of treated nuclear wastewater from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean until it is verifiably safe to do so.

In March 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami triggered a full meltdown of the power plant. Water has been used to keep three reactors under control and has been stored in tanks that now hold about 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water, enough for about 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools –but space is running out.

The Science Media Centre asked experts to explain the science behind the treated wastewater.

Professor Jamie Quinton, head of School of Natural Sciences, Massey University, comments:

For several years now, Japan has been intending to release over 1.25 million tonnes of Fukushima wastewater into the sea as part of its plan to decommission the power station, when its storage capacity reaches its limit in 2023.

Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) has built the infrastructure to extract tonnes of newly contaminated water each day – water that is needed to keep the core of each of its three damaged reactors cool. It includes a processing plant called ALPS (Advanced Liquid Processing System), which filters most of the radioactive elements present in the wastewater.

Of the radioactive elements present in the treated wastewater, the primary component is tritium, which is an isotope of hydrogen. Wherever we find hydrogen, including in water, tritium is present in extremely low amounts.

The treated Fukushima wastewater will have a significantly greater concentration of tritium, but by releasing into the ocean, the tritium concentration will quickly become extremely diluted to far less than one part per trillion. Over a 30 year period, 81.5 percent of the tritium radioactivity will be lost.

Controversy with environmental groups arose because in April and May 2011, over 300,000 tonnes of untreated water was dumped into the ocean to free up water tanks, and these were 100 times over the legal limit for radioactivity release. While this led to the creation of the ALPS and dramatically improved the elemental profile of the wastewater, this initial dumping started the mistrust.

In this original unprocessed wastewater, the radioactive isotopes of concern were iodine-131 and caesium-137, both of which are used in nuclear medicine radiotherapy applications which means that they have sufficient energy to cause cell death and mutation. In other words, they are capable of producing cancers.

There were several other radioactive products in the

unprocessed water that are hazardous to living species and ecosystems. As organisms consume other organisms, more of these radioactive products accumulate in their bodies, which can in turn, end up in humans. So these radioactive elements must be kept out of natural ecosystems as much as possible, especially the ocean.

TEPCO claimed for years that the ALPS removed all radioactive materials except for tritium, but in 2018 they admitted that it isn’t perfect and doesn’t completely remove all of these heavy radioactive elements.

This has led to further mistrust and people quite logically come to the conclusion that no release means no increase in radioactivity in the ecosystem. However, it’s worth noting that the storage tanks also pose a risk if they release the water in an uncontrolled manner for any reason (including natural disaster, etc).

TEPCO and the Japanese government have sought endorsements from regulatory bodies and have received them from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which have strict guidelines and international standards on the acceptable practices for radiation protection, and oversee the release of water used in fission reactors around the world.

The IAEA have given their endorsement to the Japanese government and they are planning to go ahead after assessing the risks and dangers of releasing the wastewater from a radiological perspective.

Currently, an independent panel of global experts on nuclear issues are supporting Pacific Islands Forum nations in their consultations with Japan over its intentions to discharge treated nuclear wastewater into the Pacific Ocean.

I have no doubt that the panel and the IAEA will establish monitoring of radiation levels prior to, during and subsequent to any release of wastewater into the ocean.

Hopefully the Japanese government and TEPCO have explored the possibility of seeking a use for the tritiated water through the global nuclear fusion community, as tritium is a key fuel of interest for fusion reactor research.

If the release of wastewater into the ocean is to proceed, getting the process correct and within regulations is of particular importance to Japan’s aquaculture-based industries. It is in Japan’s economic interest to ensure that the waterways remain below internationally acceptable levels for background radiation so that food safety is assured, and their capacity for international trade remains unaffected.

What are the potential dangers of releasing nuclear wastewater into the ocean? Is there a way to do it with full confidence that it is safe?

The danger of indiscriminately releasing nuclear fission products into the ocean is that the products can find their way into the food chain. Once in the food chain the long-lived nuclear fission heavy nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131 tend to concentrate in human muscle, bones, and thyroid, respectively. Cancers can be the result. This is why the Japanese must remove as much of that these radioactive nuclei from the Fukushima water before release.

The cesium-137 and strontium-90 nuclei still exist on the ocean floor due to atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. A good guide for having confidence in the safe release of radiation is to reduce radiation exposure to make it as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA). Filtering out the fission nuclei from the stored wastewater is the best that can be done.”

What do we know now about the treatment process, and what additional evidence is needed to know it is safe to release?

Cooling seawater and later groundwater started flowing through the destroyed Fukushima nuclear reactor in 2011. Until 2013 this water was dumped directly into the Pacific Ocean. The water initially carried dozens of radioactive products of nuclear fission.

The first two years were the most dangerous time because long-

Water has been used to keep three reactors under control and has been stored in tanks that now hold about 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water, enough for about 500 Olympicsized swimming pools – but space is running out.

lived heavy nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131 ended up in the atmosphere and ocean.

The solution to reducing the number of nuclear fission nuclei released was to develop and employ in 2013 an advanced liquid processing system (ALPS). A series of filters was designed to remove all fission nuclei except for tritium and carbon-14.

The ALPS partially worked. The Tokyo Electric Power company TEPCO and the International Atomic Energy Agency IAEA agree that about 70 percent of the stored Fukushima water may still carry some of the original nuclear fission nuclei. This water should be run through more cycles of the ALPS before dilution and release into the ocean.

The other 30 percent of the treated water can be diluted with seawater by factors of several hundred to one thousand and then released into the ocean. Any remaining tritium and carbon-14 from the Fukushima reactor may find its way into the food chain, but these nuclei stay in the human body for roughly 10 days before half of their number is excreted. The 10 days is known as the biological half-life.

Tritium and carbon-14 are naturally produced by high energy protons hitting nitrogen and oxygen nuclei in our atmosphere and landing in the world’s oceans, so they naturally exist in our bodies. It is important not to conflate the radiation from nuclear fission nuclei like cesium-137, strontium-90, and iodine-131, with the naturally occurring tritium and carbon-14. The latter two nuclei will always be in the environment.”

Article provided by Science Media Centre

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Dr David Krofcheck, senior lecturer in physics, University of Auckland, comments:

PHOTO COURTESY OF: GREG WEBB / IAEA

Mangroves: environmental guardians of our coastline

They are the salt-tolerant shrubs that thrive in the toughest of conditions, but according to new University of South Australia (UniSA) research, mangroves are also avid coastal protectors, capable of surviving in heavy metal contaminated environments.

The researchers found that grey mangroves, Avicennia marina, can tolerate high lead, zinc, arsenic, cadmium, and copper in contaminated sediment – without sustaining adverse health impacts themselves.

The study tested the health of grey mangroves living around the Port Pirie smelter in South Australia. Using leaf chlorophyll content as a proxy to plant health, mangroves were found to be unaffected by metallic contaminants, despite lead and zinc levels being 60 and 151-fold higher than regulatory guidance values.

The findings highlight the vital role of mangroves in stabilising polluted regions, and the importance of protecting these ‘coastal guardians’ around the world.

The study also coincides with a $3 million federal government initiative to restore mangrove forests in Adelaide’s north.

Dr Farzana Kastury from UniSA’s Future Industries Institute says that ability of mangroves to withstand high metal concentrations make them invaluable in managing polluted environments.

“Mangroves are the ideal eco-defender: they protect our coastlines from erosion and sustain biodiversity, but they also have an incredible ability to trap toxic contaminants in their sediments.

“Grey mangroves are known for their tolerance of potentially toxic elements, but until now, little has been known about the health of these plants in the Upper Spencer Gulf.

“Our research found that grey mangroves were able to adapt and survive exposure to

Fascinating fact

Globally, mangrove forest, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows store more than 30,000 teragrams (or 30 trillion kilograms) of carbon across 185 million hectares, potentially reducing around three per cent of global carbon emissions.

very high levels of lead and zinc – without adverse health effects in their chlorophyll content – demonstrating how valuable they are to coastal ecosystems.”

Other, ongoing work being done at Port Pirie by UniSA’s associate professor Craig Styan suggests there may be four to seven times more metals stored in the sediments in mangroves than in adjacent unvegetated mudflats. Craig says that, generally, a greater concentration of metals found in sediments means greater contamination risk for the animals and plants living on/in them.

“The levels of bioavailable metals we measured in the surface sediments in mangrove stands are the same as adjacent mudflats, meaning that although mangroves storing significantly more metals this doesn’t appear to increase the risk of contamination for the many animals that use mangrove habitats,” Craig says.

Mangroves (along with tidal marshes and seagrasses) are part of the blue carbon ecosystem; when protected or restored, they sequester and store carbon, but when degraded or destroyed, they emit stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases.

Farzana says understanding the role of mangrove forests in safely stabilising metallic contaminants in highly polluted areas is imperative – not only for South Australian communities, but also around the world.

“Globally, over a third of mangrove forests have disappeared, mostly due to human impact such as reclaiming land for agriculture and industrial development and infrastructure projects.

“We must protect our mangrove forests so that they can continue their job in protecting our environment.”

Hastings North Mangroves around Westernport Bay, Hastings, Victoria.

Bay of Plenty Regional Council’s work guides and supports the sustainable development of the Bay of Plenty.

Our laboratory and sampling services team is registered with Taumata Arowai and can provide IANZ accredited testing and sampling for a number of different chemical, microbiological and drinking water parameters.

For further information on our laboratory testing services go to www.boprc.govt.nz

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