Water Journal November/December 2023 by Water_New_Zealand

water MAY 2015 | ISSUE 189

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 ISSUE 232

News and photos from our conference The bottle that speaks of the past Rainfall-induced landslide mapping and modelling Restoring Waihi’s estuary

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CONTENTS WATER NEW ZEALAND President: Lorraine Kendrick Board Members: Bruce Balaei, Troy Brockbank, Fraser Clark, Tim Gibson, David Hogg, Lorraine Kendrick, Priyan Perera, Shelley Wharton Chief Executive: Gillian Blythe Internal Events and Logistics Co-ordinator: Katrina Guy Corporate and Membership Services Manager: Mumtaz Parker Membership Administrator/Office Manager: Pip Donnelly Technical Manager: Noel Roberts Technical Advisor (Regulatory): Nicci Wood Technical Advisor (Projects and Sustainability): Lesley Smith Training Development Manager: Belinda Cridge Communications Manager: Debra Harrington Marketing, Website and Design Co-ordinator: Ranya Adolf Association Secretary and Executive Administrator: Ali Bray Accounts Administrator: 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 M: +64 21 676 034 Advertising Sales: Debbie Laing M: +64 27 455 0223 Design: Jonathan Whittaker M: +64 21 147 5591 Publishing: Contrafed Publishing, General Manager: David Penny, 1 Grange Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024 PO Box 112 357, Penrose, Auckland, 1642 P: +64 9 636 5715 www.contrafed.co.nz Distribution: Pip Donnelly, enquiries@waternz.org.nz P: +64 4 472 8925 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. ISSN 1179-2949 (Print) ISSN 2382-1906 (Online) www.waternz.org.nz

Water is printed on environmentally responsible paper, sourced from PEFC certified fibre from sustainably managed and legally harvested forests, and manufactured under strict ISO 14001 environmental management systems

Issue 232 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023

INSIDE

FEATURES

04 President’s comment

34 Profile: Liam Foster

07 Drinking water quality group established

36 Profile: Rumana Sayyad

08 Connecting with water professional arcross the world

38 The bottle that speaks of the past

10 Queenstown outbreak highlights infrastructure neglect

43 Ancient Mayan reservoirs offer lessons for today 44 Massive undersea water reservoir discovered

12 School students dive into water science

46 Dairy farms helping to improve water quality

CONFERENCE

52 Joint venture to restore Waihi Estuary

50 Mitigating nitrous oxide emissions 56 A tale of two streams

14 Overview and photos 18 Erin Brockovich: It’s up to us to save the world 22 Award winners 26 WECAN workshop: Driving down water loss 28 Transforming lives through WaterAid

60 The impacts of Gabrielle on marine life 62 Upper Nihotupu Dam back in business 72 Months in the mud leads to science fair success 74 Water4Kids trapped in the Ukraine warzone

CASE STUDIES AND COMMENT PIECES

31 Urgent need for certainty in the water sector 32 Water stewardship, for now and the future

64 Cyclone Gabrielle landslide response and recovery 70 Naturalised E. Coli still indicate potential health risk 76 Legal comment 78 Utilities in the transport corridor 80 Environmental impacts of building materials

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- ‘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’ The official journal of Water New Zealand – New Zealand’s only water environment periodical. Established in 1958, Water New Zealand is a non-profit organisation.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND FROM THE PRESIDENT

Call to action:

We must lead the water sector into the future Lorraine Kendrick

President, Water New Zealand

n my opening speech at our Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023, I promised that I wouldn’t discuss politics. Indeed, mainly because of timing it was the first time in many years that we didn’t have a government minister speaking at the conference. Yet, whether we like it or not, politics will continue to influence water infrastructure at both local and national levels. So my call to action was how do we, as the water community of Aotearoa New Zealand, take more direct ownership and control of the sector, now and into the future. How do we move beyond the three year political cycle and set the course for a long term resilient, affordable water future? The key is leadership. But what does water leadership look like? The water sector is very fragmented in all aspects, whether it’s legislation, policies or the various operating and delivery models. We need leaders who have the ability to influence and manage change in the complex, cross-boundary and multi-stakeholder context of the water sector. We need to be change agents because adopting a business-as-usual mindset will not meet the challenges facing the water sector, be it climate change, regulatory change or simply affordability of services. And we need our leaders to be able to work together on a shared understanding of common goals and strategy. It’s with that in mind that Water New Zealand embarked on ‘Towards 2050: Transformation vision for the water sector’ earlier this year. Many of our members took part in workshops around the country and we identified key focus areas we need to work on to achieve this vision and a pathway towards it. The introduction of Te Mana o te Wai into legislation has formed the core of our transformation journey and offers a new paradigm to bring about the changes needed in our relationship and management of water. We need to focus on the environment and climate because healthy waters that support thriving ecosystems and restore wider environments underpin the well-being of our communities and businesses. We also need to provide safe, equitable and affordable water services for all, ensuring climate resilient procurement and delivery models along with co-ordinated and consistent national legislation and policy frameworks that facilitate local delivery.

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TOWARDS 2050: Transformation vision for the water sector

Then we need to make sure that the water sector is an attractive career choice so that we retain valued and trained staff in a digitally enabled environment. It was fitting that we launched the final version of ‘Towards 2050: Transformation vision for the water sector’ at the conference. If you haven’t already, I urge you to take a look. It’s on the Water New Zealand website. I was also heartened, though not surprised, to see so many enthusiastic delegates, passionate exhibitors and exceptional technical, keynote and inspirational speakers this year. Thank you to the technical committee for their tireless work in ensuring such a high calibre of papers and presenters. We’re in uncertain times but we’re very fortunate to have so many members and those in the wider sector who are committed to ensuring a long term affordable, resilient and sustainable water future. With that I’d very much like to acknowledge the work of our retiring board members, Helen Aitkins, who has stepped down from her role of past president, and Deborah Lind, who completes her rotation. On behalf of the rest of the board, I thank them for their valuable contributions and welcome our new board members, David Hogg and Bruce Balaei. ‘Ka ora te wai, ka ora te whenua, ka ora ngā tāngata’ ‘If the water is healthy, the land is healthy, the people are healthy’ Mauri ora Ka kite anō Lorraine Kendrick President

If you are passionate about water, want to stay current with latest industry updates and trends, this year’s symposium is a must attend. The 2023 Symposium set new records for abstracts, workshops and sponsors! Let’s do this again in 2024! Presentations cover a wide range of topics from water network resilience, modelling coastal erosion, groundwater and hydraulic structures, through to urban stormwater, flood and morphological river modelling - something for everyone!

Register now to get a great earlybird deal Take part in discussions, workshops and make new contacts and business opportunities while helping shape the future of the water sector in Aotearoa New Zealand. Call for abstracts close on December 15 Do you have a project or workshop idea that you’d like to share with the water industry? Presenting at the Modelling Symposium provides a great opportunity to showcase what you’re doing to support and drive a reliable water industry.

Go to the Water New Zealand Website Modelling Symposium page to find out more

WATER NEW ZEALAND UPFRONT

Reducing to net zero – harnessing opportunities or locking in greenhouse gas emissions Don’t be afraid to ask questions. That‘s one of the clear messages emerging from discussions in Water New Zealand’s podcast series on Navigating to Net Zero. The Tawara o te Wai podcasts aim to unpack issues that the water sector is facing as each organisation grapples with the challenges of reaching Net Carbon Zero by 2050. The series has been put together by Water New Zealand’s Climate Change Group members Jon Reed and Hannah Edmond. While different organisations are at different stages in their carbon reduction journey, one of the clear themes has been the importance of asking questions – wherever you sit in your organisation – from young professionals just

starting out and those working on the ground, to those with wider experiences. In the UK, Anglian Water’s head of carbon neutrality David Riley says it’s remarkable how much support you’ll get and how often the questions asked are those that are in other people’s minds too. And this was reiterated by commentators from within the local water sector. The podcast discussions have delved into the importance of carbon emissions targets, developing a baseline, understanding carbon hotspots, and forecasting, as well as focusing on what world-leading utilities are doing. The timing is critical, says Jon. “We know that with the water sector poised

for huge investment in infrastructure, we have some crucial opportunities to set in place pathways that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” But he says that getting it wrong could lock in carbon emissions for years to come. Recently, our Climate Change Group produced a guide, Navigating to Net Zero – Aotearoa’s Water Sector Low Carbon Journey, to help provide some practical answers to how we can meet our net zero carbon emissions targets. It can be found in the publications and resources section on our website, waternz.org.nz. Visit the news and events section of the Water New Zealand website, or Spotify, to listen to our podcast series.

Introducing our new board members Water New Zealand welcomes new board members Bruce Balaei and David Hogg. Both David and Bruce are already active members of Water New Zealand and known to many members. They replace past-president Helen Atkins and former board member Deborah Lind who are retiring by rotation. Helen and Deborah have been extremely valuable Water New Zealand board members, and we thank them for their contributions. Bruce Balaei works as a senior healthy waters specialist at Auckland Council. He holds a PhD in Civil Engineering and is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng). He chairs the Water New Zealand Stormwater Committee’s Education, Training, and Communication subcommittee, and is actively involved in the Pressure Pipe Condition Assessment Guideline Design Advisory Group. In his current role at Auckland Council, Bruce manages complex stormwater projects, integrates sustainability practices, and engages with stakeholders to ensure comprehensive project

understanding. He has had previous stints working at consultancies leading multi-disciplinary projects and asset management. He served as a committee member of Young IPWEA NZ and played a role in Auckland Civil Defence initiatives. David Hogg is a regional director, water at Stantec, and is keenly aware of the pressures facing Water New Zealand members across the country. Funding pressures, climate impacts, competing investment priorities, and water reform uncertainty are just a few. A Water New Zealand member for 20 years, David actively participates in the Water Utilities Association (WUA) Group and advocates for his team’s involvement in conference technical committees, and Special Interest Groups. Over the past decade, David has held leadership and governance roles providing support to clients and teams across the water sector. Outside the water sector, David has held governance positions on community organisations and school boards.

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Drinking water quality group established By Tatiana Derevianko, group chair Ongoing challenges around ensuring clean and safe drinking quality water has brought together a group of water professionals passionate about ensuring a clean and safe drinking water future: the newly-established Water New Zealand Drinking Water Quality Group. We are fast approaching the 12 month milestone under new regulatory compliance rules, introduced by Taumata Arowai in November 2022, and water suppliers around the country are embracing transformations of the government water reform. While this is happening, many potable supplies are still recovering from the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle. And, on top of this, Taumata Arowai recently released a list of 27 councils that operate 84 drinking water supplies lacking a treatment barrier preventing protozoa from contaminating the water. A wide range of technical topics can be added to these mix of challenges – from current water quality risks for water suppliers, to emerging contaminants that we are now required by our new regulator to be prepared

for. There are standards that either already issued for some of these or that may be adopted in the future. There is a growing interest in potential health risks associated with both the known and the emerging contaminants and whether the existing standards are set at an appropriate level. These include disinfection by-products; plumbosolvent metals such as lead and corrosion control; PFAS; microplastics; cyanobacteria; gold clam; distribution system operation impacts on water quality; multibarrier treatment processes; real-time water quality monitoring; and future water sources – recycled water, desalination or any other alternatives. Safe drinking water is a necessity for good health and it is worth noting that the following news headlines are still in our rear view mirror: “Faeces linked to gastroenteritis outbreak that hit thousands in New Zealand town”, “Pain, rashes and puffy eyes as water scare plagues New Zealand town”, “Residents told to avoid drinking tap water”, “Poor conditions of

reservoir at root of contamination incident”, and “Water crisis sparks call for all drinking supplies to be chlorinated”. All of these cases were very hard lessons to learn for the areas involved and have provided a wakeup call for every other water supplier to make sure that the incidents are not repeated. It also gives us a chance to reach out and share the knowledge that will prevent such terrible events. We need to be able to have a forum for that. We are looking for passionate process engineers, equipment and water suppliers, laboratory experts, scientists, compliance officials, and others with a passion for advancing drinking water quality from around the country to connect with our newly established Drinking Water Quality group. Our committee aims to share experiences and learnings, promote consistent approaches to water quality management across the country and support suppliers during times of need. If you are a Water New Zealand member and wish to join the new Drinking Water Quality Group, you can be registered to be notified of group news and events at www.waternz.org.nz/DWQGroup.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND UPFRONT

Connecting with water professionals across the world Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe has been building our international relationships across the globe. Here is her report. I have had the opportunity to meet with passionate water professionals from across the world in the past two months, joining a New Zealand delegation visiting WEFTEC 2023 in Chicago, USA, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan for the 9th IWA ASPIRE Conference. Garry Macdonald, BECA, invited me to join him at the House of Delegates meeting ahead of the WEFTEC 2023 conference. This was an amazing opportunity to meet Water Environment Federation member associations from across the USA and elsewhere in the world. For me, the realisation that the individuals participating are all experiencing many of the same challenges we face in New Zealand (workforce shortages, capacity development, lack of diversity) was both frustrating and heartening. Heartening because if we can share our successes, and our lessons learned across these member associations, we can hopefully leapfrog a few steps along the way. At one level this was like finding a water ‘AA’ meeting, and making lots of friends who you can call when you need an answer. Before arriving in Chicago, Garry and I met with staff from the WEF office in Washington DC and US EPA officials to discuss PFAS developments. New Zealand water professionals interested in accessing WEF materials can join as “eGlobal” members for US$32. Check out their website www.WeF.org. Water New Zealand is planning to leverage information available through our participation in WEF, and my membership of the House of Delegates to support our activities here. Water New Zealand has signed an agreement with the International Water Association to host the 10th IWA ASPIRE Conference in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland in October 2025, in conjunction with the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo. The signing took place in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, during the 9th IWA ASPIRE Conference. IWA NZ Chair, Marion Savill and I will be cochairs of the 10th IWA ASPIRE Conference. I’d

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Garry Macdonald, Radleigh Cairns and Gillian Blythe pose in front of the WEFTEC sign.

Water New Zealand chief executive, Gillian Blythe and IWA executive director, Kala Vairavamoorthy signing the IWA Aspire agreement.

like to particularly thank Marion for her hard work and effort over many years in securing this important industry event for us. The decision to join forces with IWA is an innovative departure from business as usual. It will provide an exciting opportunity for overseas delegates and exhibitors to meet with Water New Zealand delegates and exhibitors to share their experiences and expertise.

It was great to meet delegates and exhibitors in Kaoshiung from across the Asia Pacific region, and share the video from our conference in Wellington, as well as videos of our beautiful countryside. Thank you to the New Zealand delegation that came to Taiwan – Marion Savill, Lorraine Kendrick, Brendon Green, Hugh Blake-Manson, Jon Lamonte, Mark Bourne, and Rob Fullerton.

New Digital Badge learning opportunities The Water New Zealand team is delighted to be able to announce the launch of two new digital badges – Rural Water Supplies and School Drinking Water (Self Supply) 101. These are targeted at very small community suppliers and fill a significant gap in the training on offer for these groups. Both badges are available as fully online learning packages to allow learning at times and places that suit. The new badges include newly developed workbooks, which not only support the online learning but also provide a framework for suppliers to develop their own operation and maintenance manual. While the content echoes the Small Waters 101 Digital Badge, these new badges go into the detail of acceptable solutions and are very focused on the very small suppliers. The Rural Water Supplies 101 digital badge is designed for people who have, or are going to have, a supply for a small group of houses (supplying less than 25 people). It helps new suppliers get started on the water management journey through covering the basic requirements and key legislation for this supplier cohort. Additionally, this course covers use of the Acceptable Solutions (particularly the Mixed-Use Agricultural Acceptable Solution) that have been developed by Taumata Arowai to simplify drinking water management. Water New Zealand has partnered with MasterPlumbers to offer this course at a discounted rate for a limited time to registered plumbers across the country. The School Drinking Water (Self Supply) 101 covers almost identical content to the Rural Water Supplies but provides more tailored information and resources for schools. In particular, the course acknowledges the risks of particular hazards for young students and references additional materials that are available from organisations such as the Ministry of Education. We are delighted to be working alongside SchoolDocs, an online policy service for schools, to make this training accessible nationwide. These badges bring our total online training offering to nine, joining Drinking Water 101, Drinking Water 201, Stormwater 101, Wastewater 101, Backflow 101, Sampling 101, and Small Waters 101. If your organisation is looking to train a number of people, talk to us about bulk packages. By bulk buying you can streamline access to the courses, save money, and access our bespoke training package – Welcome to Water. This short course provides an introduction to the water sector for people who are going to be working in a water organisation or with water professionals but don’t need all the technical information. It covers the basic principles of water treatment and management while introducing some of the important terminology. This course is only available to bulk package subscribers. Contact us at training@waternz.org.nz for more information.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND UPFRONT

Queenstown outbreak highlights infrastructure neglect The revelation that 300,000 people are supplied with drinking water that does not have adequate protection against protozoa contamination is another indication of the lack of long-term investment in water infrastructure. Following the Queenstown cryptosporidium contamination, it was revealed that 27 councils don’t provide multi-barrier protection of drinking water, leaving their communities at risk of illness. Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe says this is a consequence of longterm underfunding and lack of regulatory enforcement of our water infrastructure assets. “We know that there is a risk if water is not adequately treated but we also know that many suppliers, particularly smaller ones, struggle to afford the funding and expertise required to run this level of multi-barrier protection. “During 2022 there were 164 boil water notices across 36 councils and 87 suppliers – a clear indication that there has been water supply contamination. We need to take a long term view about how we can ensure safe drinking water for all New Zealanders that provides equitable outcomes for small communities. “Clearly, scale is important. Large organisations are more able to fund the

The regulator’s timeline In a workshop prior to the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023, Taumata Arowai outlined the timeframe for its expectations for suppliers to comply with protozoa barrier requirements under the Water Services Act 2021 and the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules. • For all water sources: Plan and funding confirmed by 30 June 2024. • For surface water sources: Installation and operation by 31 December 2024. • For bore water sources: Installation and operation by 31 December 2025. Taumata Arowai said it will shortly be doing a similar exercise for bacterial protection and other risks as they are seen to arise.

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infrastructure and expertise to manage the complex multi-barrier protection.” She says it is important that Taumata Arowai is adequately resourced to monitor suppliers and ensure better compliance with drinking water standards and that there is a crossgovernment, multi-agency approach to source water protection. “We know that one in five New Zealanders are supplied with drinking water that does not meet drinking water standards and therefore is not knowingly safe to drink, while another million people receive water from small supplies or selfsupplies where there is no information about the water quality they are drinking.” Compounding this is the lack of oversight and regulation of the many on-site wastewater systems. “Across the country it has been estimated that there are between 300,000 and 400,000 on-site treatment units. This means that about 18 percent, or nearly one in five New Zealanders, rely on on-site units for their sewage treatment. “Many communities are at serious risk of illness because many of these systems are old and poorly installed and maintained. This is another risk to public health. For instance, it would only take one substandard on-site wastewater system at a school, camping

ground, marae, or single rural dwelling to put a neighbouring community water supply scheme at serious risk. “We need a more pro-active approach with better and more consistent regulation of onsite wastewater management systems across the country.” In 2008, there was a proposal to develop a national environmental standard requiring many on-site wastewater systems to hold a warrant of fitness ensuring they were properly maintained and functioning. “Unfortunately that never progressed and onsite wastewater management has continued to remain outside the three waters reforms. “The lack of consistency has meant that important safety issues such as separation distances between onsite wastewater and drinking water sources vary across councils and are not always understood by those enforcing them.” Homeowners with on-site wastewater systems also have an important role to play. Water New Zealand has published an overview and detailed technical guide to help them understand risks and responsibilities: waternz. org.nz/OWMScompleteguide. Experts in onsite wastewater management can also be contacted through the Water New Zealand OWMS special interest group: waternz.org.nz/OWMS.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND UPFRONT

School students dive into the wonders of water science To help spark kiwi kids’ connection and understanding of water, Water New Zealand has been partnering in a sponsoring programme to bring House of Science water education kits to schools. Training and development manager Belinda Cridge recently joined a school field trip to a local waterway where students were able to take part in hands-on water experiments. She writes here about the day. In a chatter, we left the school grounds, uncertainty written on our faces. The biggest fear was the smell – surely the wastewater plant would reek so badly! What was the teacher thinking about taking the class there for a field trip? Well, it turns out the smell wasn’t so bad, not nearly as bad as a particular family member’s fart, according to one student, and it wasn’t as gross as they thought. This trip was the end of a term’s worth of exploration into one school’s local waterways, which took them from rubbish dumps to creeks to lakes and, finally, to understanding wastewater. Water New Zealand has been looking at ways to introduce more conversations about water into schools. We know that young people are our future consumers and workforce, so we want to support teachers and educators to include waterrelated topics in their teaching programmes. Because there are so many schools and so many students, our approach has been to work alongside organisations already active in this space. Our first partnership is with the House of Science, which provides comprehensive and engaging science resources nationwide. Water New Zealand is working with Hawke's Bay Regional Council and the Rivers Group to sponsor House of Science water education kits nationwide. This partnership led to this school trip to the wastewater treatment plant. It all started with a conversation about water testing. Living in Rotorua, the students and teachers were aware of

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Visiting Lake Rotoiti, the Ohau Channel and Lake Rotorua, the students tested, observed, recorded, wrote, discussed, and analysed.

pollution in the local lakes, the degradation of the local stream and the frequent algal bloom notices that interrupt summer fun in the local swimming spots. Wanting to know more, they reached out through the parent network, and Water New Zealand agreed to come alongside them to help with their investigations. We started with the House of Science Wonderful Wai kit. This kit introduces water as a chemical, how it acts, how water droplets form and why it is so vital to all life forms. The students also undertook an activity to understand more about the allocation of water resources and how we make decisions about who can access

water and when. With this knowledge on board, we started talking about pollution, in particular nitrates. Although another House of Science kit is available that could help (Water Analysis), we decided to wing it. We had a look at some local water testing data from LAWA and decided to test nitrates in our local environment. After a discussion with the local iwi, the class headed out on a field trip. Visiting Lake Rotoiti, the Ohau Channel and Lake Rotorua, the students tested, observed, recorded, wrote, discussed, and analysed. The weather was fine, the lakes were beautiful, and the water was clear. Before we left, we developed a worksheet based on the Ministry for the

Living in Rotorua, the students and teachers were aware of pollution in the local lakes, the degradation of the local stream and the frequent algal bloom notices that interrupt summer fun in the local swimming spots.

Environment Cultural Health Index, which encouraged the students to observe and record the environment around the water body. We then took small samples of water to test for nitrates, pH and temperature. The results were recorded for analysis back at school as part of the maths curriculum. Sadly, analytical challenges meant we could not get an accurate reading for the nitrate levels. We tried sourcing real testing strips but could only source tests with a minimum detection of 5mg/L, meaning most samples returned negative. However, this allowed the group to talk about accuracy and repeatability in scientific testing. As we discussed nitrates, and how they get into waterways, the students began asking questions about what happens to human waste. Does it get into the lakes? Where does it go? How is it managed? Fortunately, the Trility team* who operate the Rotorua Wastewater Treatment Plant were happy to help the students find out more. After some serious discussions about health and safety, we were able to fix a time and date, and while the students were nervous, we headed down to the plant. When we arrived, Neil and the team

took us around the plant in small groups, explaining all the processes and challenges. The questions flowed thick and fast – so what happens at Christmas; do you have to come to work? What weird things have you found on the screens? (The winner for weirdness: a bicycle). What happens to the treatment bugs if you flush bleach down the toilet? How much do you get paid to do this? Where does the water go after it leaves here? What is this for? And this? And this? The lack of smell surprised me, and the trip was a success. The students continue to read, write, and learn about water in their local area but have been enthused by the opportunity to get out and experience science outside the classroom. For those in the industry who are keen to work with schools, here are a number of key learnings from this project: This takes a lot of goodwill and effort from the teacher. We were lucky to have an enthusiastic teacher and supportive school management who could organise field trips, deal with health and safety planning, and support the field trips with in-classroom learning. This is no mean feat, and while we

are all busy, don’t underestimate the effort this takes from the teaching staff. There is a lot of health and safety. Planning for the two field trips required multiple approvals and forms from both the school and the treatment plant. If you routinely allow schools on site, helping them with the planning can help immensely. The group we worked with was primaryaged (years 5 and 6). This is ideal, as the teacher has more flexibility around curriculum and field trips. At intermediate and secondary levels, additional staffing requirements are needed to replace teachers who leave school, and students who go off site may miss other classes. However, the younger age group was a challenge in terms of health and safety at the plant, so thinking through how you could accommodate this younger cohort is useful. Don’t underestimate your value to the process as an expert. We ran sessions in class prior to the field trip to discuss issues and practice the techniques we were going to use. The experts who participated at this stage were able to support and extend the learning (we found the teachers also learnt a lot). Water New Zealand endorses the Inspiring the Future programme to connect experts with schools. For more information see inspiringthefuture.org.nz. Use the resources that already exist. If your school doesn’t yet use the House of Science kits, why not suggest they sign up (houseofscience.nz/). They provide teacherfriendly and hands-on resources for primary schools nationwide. Water New Zealand also has resources available on its website, including the worksheets that we developed for this project. The Science Learning Hub (sciencelearn.org.nz/) has some great water resources that can help teachers introduce concepts to support the hands-on activities. Just do it! The rewards are immense. Seeing students understand more about water, getting involved in water conservation and wanting to protect their local waterways is fantastic. You all have expertise to share – why not contact a local school or sign up as an Inspiring the Future role model today? *Trility operates and maintains the Rotorua Wastewater Treatment Plant on behalf of the Rotorua Lakes Council. Both parties are proud to support and participate in a programme that provides insight and opportunities for school students to learn more about the important role the water sector plays in their everyday lives.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Conference 2023 – a resounding success

Excellence Awards, presented at the Downer Gala dinner

By Gillian Blythe Don’t our conferences just keep on getting better? It’s easy every year to say that our conference is the biggest and brightest one yet, but it’s true! This year it was held for the first time in the fabulous new Tākina Convention and Exhibition Centre in the heart of Te Whanganui-aTara Wellington. We attracted a record-breaking 1200-plus delegates and presented more than 100 thought leadership, keynote and technical speakers and presentations along with 185 exhibition stands. It was a jam-packed two-and-a-half days, plus full day preconference workshop, with plenty of discussion around the challenges and opportunities in water. Innovation, the impact of climate change, resilience, Te Mana o te Wai, transformation, regulation, digital technology, were just a few of the many discussions we had along with the many inspiring keynote and thought leadership speakers. Our opening keynote speaker, Helmut Modlik, CEO of Te Rūnanga o Toa Rangatira, delivered a challenging and emotional opening speech when he talked of the degradation of Porirua Harbour and the plans underway to restore it. International keynote speaker Erin Brockovich spoke of how vital it is that communities stand up and fight for water quality. We had inspiring presentations from across the Tasman from Melbourne-based Greater Western Water managing director Maree Lang, and former South Australian Minister of Water Karlene Maywald. And of course, our Excellence Awards, presented at the Downer Gala dinner, gave us the opportunity to celebrate outstanding achievement across the sector. So much happening right now and thank you to all the many people who worked so hard to make this conference such a success.

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We attracted a record-breaking 1200-plus delegates 4

Lots of kids enjoyed the day

Dancing and Band at Gala Dinner

Regulators Panel

Te Radar drawing prizes

Downer Gala dinner

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Winner Double stand – Filtec

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Winner Single Stand – P&F Global

Proudly brought to you by Water New Zealand

2024

15–17 May | Takina Wellington Te Whanganui-a-Tara

Karanga | Call for Abstracts & Workshops The call for abstracts and workshops for the Stormwater Conference & Expo May 2024 is now open.

This year’s theme is Embracing Change Do you want to share your knowledge of any of the below?

Resilient Systems

Kaupapa Māori

Nature-based solutions

Enabling Investment

If these resonate with you, or you have another stormwater interest – you can submit an abstract or workshop topic before Wednesday, 31 January 2024.

Be part of the discussion There are two options for abstracts: Short abstract, full paper and presentation: A 500-word abstract is to be submitted for review. On acceptance to the programme a full paper is to be prepared and submitted for review by Tuesday, 9 April 2024. Long abstract and presentation only: A longer 1,500-word abstract to be submitted for review. On acceptance to the programme, presentation materials are to be prepared and submitted before Friday, 26 April 2024

Workshops Do you have a burning topic that you would love to see workshopped at the Stormwater Conference 2024? The committee is seeking suggestions and submissions for pre-conference workshops, inconference workshops and panel discussions. Workshops and panel discussions provide the opportunity to delve into more detail, or get more inclusive kōrero/discussion on some of the more complex aspects across our industry. We would like these to be thought-provoking and Visit our website www.stormwaterconference.org.nz to see not just ‘Business as Usual’, so please get creative.

2023 conference highlights the mailing list. Workshop submissions and panel suggestions areand to bejoin submitted to Katrina Guy katrina.guy@waternz.org.nz before Wednesday, 31 January 2024.

Please see the Stormwater Conference Website stormwaterconference.org.nz for further information.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

It’s up to us to

save the world Erin Brockovich (“not Julia Roberts; the real gal”) joined the conference remotely from Chicago, sharing her love for water and her work that resulted in an Oscar-winning movie.

She says she has been fascinated with water since she was a child; playing in creeks, rivers and streams. “I was amazed with its constant forward movement. It’s strength individually and its strength when it joined another stream, another tributary, to come together and create a great Niagara Falls.” As we know from the film, Erin got involved in the community of a small desert town and fought a large utility that had known and concealed that they were poisoning the water. The resulting class action lawsuit was settled in 1996 for a record-breaking US$333 million. An outdoors girl, Erin says she always felt at home in the natural environment, and when that environment was hurting, so was she. She worries that somehow, over time, we have become disconnected from our natural environment and therefore we have become disconnected from ourselves. We are not something separate from the environment, she says. It’s us. Nature works together and each piece belongs to the other and works in unity. “It is not separate from us. It is a part of us.” Her mother shared with her an underused but powerful word with her: stick-to-itiveness – a propensity to follow through in a determined manner. Dogged persistence borne out of obligation and stubbornness. “While we may not be born with stick-toitiveness each one of us can develop the habit of persevering, even when we don’t want to, and it would be easier to give up.” Her father was an engineer, working in the environment. He taught her the greatest gifts we have are clean water, good land, fresh air, health, and family. “He said it would be up to me individually, and all of us collectively, to be the stewards of that land, the keeper of the water. He promised me, in my lifetime, water would be a commodity, water could be in jeopardy. That

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Erin Brockovich water would become more precious and more valuable than gold or oil. He was right.” So, it came naturally to Erin, when she stumbled on that small desert town of Hinckley, California, that something was not right. “The very moment I arrived and stepped foot on the land, I knew something was wrong. I knew the land was sick, I could feel it. “There was a total absence of wildlife – no birds were chirping. There was an eerie silence. The trees were dead. Animals had tumours all over their bodies. The frogs had two heads. The water was green. The people were sick. “I wondered what on earth all these people and this entire environment could be sharing that would make them so sick. And that’s when it dawned on me: oh my god, it’s the water. “Water, the most important ingredient for life, water, that gives life, had been poisoned.” She never questioned why she should get involved, even though others pointed out she wasn’t a doctor, lawyer, a water expert, or scientist. It never occurred to her that she needed to be any of those things to see something was wrong. “It was my duty to stand up and shout and scream from the rooftops, something’s wrong and we must act, we must respond.” She says her work is a reminder to listen to your instincts – even though people around her told her she was crazy and it couldn’t be happening, she stuck to what she felt was right. She also learned the power of joining together

and working collectively as a community. “Calling on the strengths of others, listening to those who were hurting, and, when we joined forces, we became just like water: one individual, one river, one creek, when we merged together, the empowerment and the force was incredible. “We had loyalty to each other, to the land and to the water, and we stood up and fought for it. Our loyalty was our common mission. It was our stick-to-itiveness; to stick with it until we discovered the truth.” Unfortunately, although they won the class action lawsuit and the poisoned land in Hinckley is being remediated, the state of water in the US and around the world is still in jeopardy. “I wish I could say in the past 30 years things have gotten better, but in fact, the situation has gotten much worse. We continue to have these issues because it is us that needs to change. “This wasn’t just an issue for that small town, or for California, or for the USA, it was an issue for the entire globe.” Consequently, 10 years ago, Erin set up a website called Community Healthbook. It is a place communities with environmental issues can self-report. A place for people to network, and where they can begin to see patterns of environmental pollution and health-related concerns. “When the water is poisoned, it poisons us. Communities with environmental problems also have health problems.” More recently, in 2020, Erin published a book: ‘Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It’. In it, she stresses that we can’t afford to wait for someone to come and save us – the government or environmental agencies. Instead, individuals need to act. Superman is not coming, she says, the hero of the story is looking at us in the mirror.

A call to arms “We are going to need to start working with water and stop fighting it,” says conference keynote speaker, and chief executive of Northern Water Entity A Wai Tāmaki ki te Hiku, Jon Lamonte. A veteran of the RAF in Iraq and the former boss of London’s tube lines and the Sydney Metro, Jon is under no illusion that the water future will be challenging. “There are some inconvenient truths. The first is the massive need for infrastructure, whether it’s a huge sinkhole in Parnell and a collapsed sewer, cryptosperidium in Queenstown’s water, or a collapsed water line in Rotorua. The status quo is not working and unless we start to think differently and act differently, we are not going to get a different result.” Jon showed a video of a trip he made to the Omanaia River in the Hokianga, explaining that a wastewater treatment plant, an abattoir, a rubbish dump, and a cemetery had been built on a site critical to Māori. “You really couldn’t do more to defile a sacred site. “We need to focus on realigning the relationship between people and water in all its forms. We need to change our approach. We need to think differently.”

Jon Lamonte

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Ngati Toa challenges water sector

harbour clean up “Our beautiful harbour has been turned into a polluted shallow pond with an estuary some say can’t be remediated.” Those were the angry words of chief executive of Te Runanga o Toa Rangatira, Helmut Modlik, about his tangata whenua, the Porirua Harbour, in his opening address to the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023.

He challenged the delegates to support him and his people to save the harbour and make its kaimoana again safe to eat. Helmut asked the conference to imagine a “new world and new light after the damn mess we have been left”. The Ngati Toa leader explained how his people had made Porirua their home after one of the largest land battles in New Zealand history, Hingakaka, near Te Awamutu. After the migration, the tribe's main kāinga was the Te Awarua o Porirua. “In the 1940s large tidal zones were still intact, and the beautiful deep blue harbour was intact. The estuary was unspoilt.” Helmut played a New Zealand Weekly Review film that celebrated the return of the Maori battalion in 1945. As we watched the welcome home feast in Porirua he said, “look how fat the pipis are for our whanau. Just look at that kaimoana”. A Maori kuia speaking on the film said the harbour used to be crystal clear: “The water tasted good and the colours – the blues and greens of the estuary. There were eels hanging in the trees on the banks of the harbour.” That all ended in the 1950s as the Porirua Basin was developed into one of the largest state housing developments in our history. Ironically Helmut’s father was one of the Austrian engineers that was responsible for building the state houses in Porirua. Helmut has clear memories of the consequences. “The state houses were built on land that was dispossessed from Ngati Toa. After 25 years of development, there was fundamental change. “All the streams of my childhood were piped up. The pipes were too small. Suddenly the land was prone to flooding. Industrial and wastewater infrastructure

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“Our strategy is to paddle our own waka. We are not relying on anyone else to do their job very well." – chief executive of Te Runanga o Toa Rangatira, Helmut Modlik.

was poorly designed and discharged into our waterways.” Helmut says his harbour has now been turned into a pond with barren tidal flats. “Water is crucial to the restoration of Te Awarua o Porirua. The kaimoana is now unsafe to eat.” Ngati Toa has embarked on a tough remediation plan that calls for the creation of a coalition for the urgent return of the Te Awarua to full health. The plan would “identify every individual and or organisation both public and private that is responsible for each degradation source”. Ngati Toa is also supporting an alternative to current wastewater treatment in Porirua.

“Our existing traditional monolithic public networks that terminate in a large scale treatment plant is a formula for single points of failure and unmanageable asset renewal plans. We have found a partner for a micro wastewater treatment where you plug in wastewater at one end and stormwater comes out the other.” Helmut also issued a strong challenge to the delegates at the conference as he spoke about the remediation plan. “Our strategy is to paddle our own waka. We are not relying on anyone else to do their job very well. We don’t have any experience of them doing their job very well. We now invite them and you to surprise us and to do so.”

Keynote speakers Creating Greater Western Water

Juggling the demands of water

Maree Lang, managing director of Greater Western Water in Victoria, Australia, says her organisation operates on lands of five traditional owner groups, who have cared for the land for over 60,000 years. In the face of the recent ‘no’ vote to alter the Australian constitution to recognise the first peoples of Australia and to establish an aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice, Maree says Greater Western Water will work with the first nations peoples, to support real partnerships, to shift engagement from consultation to codesign, and to move them from being stakeholders to rights holders. “As a new organisation, we have placed healing and caring for country – the idea of healthy people, healthy country, healthy mob, healthy water – central to our strategy.” She says this means Greater Western Water is seeking to work in

Karlene Maywald, former Minister of Water and now South Australian Water Ambassador, says politicians constantly talk about the price of water, when they actually mean the price of water infrastructure. And, thanks to the great job people in the industry do to keep water infrastructure out of sight, the public thinks water should be cheap, or free. “Water is free when it falls from the sky, but it’s not free to keep it in a dam, and it’s not free to pump and pipe it to your house 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in a fit-forpurpose state.” In addition, she says, politically, a lot of different groups – from industry to residential to the environment – want and need water and have demands on it. On top of this, water is also in a constant state of variability – there seems to be too much or not enough.

respectful relationships and respectful partnerships with traditional owners, where previously, water management models have excluded traditional owners. Maree says, a restorative justice approach will strengthen the role of traditional owners in water planning and by returning water entitlements to traditional owners. “I anticipate this will mean future reform for us, as rights and responsibilities for water management shift to encompass caring for country, and shift towards those who have always been best placed to care for country.”

This makes it easy for politicians to pass the buck – there are too many agencies with touchpoints and impacts, and they don’t work together, and everything takes so long, and politicians need wins to get re-elected, she told delegates. “Politically, [the water portfolio] is a poison chalice.” Karlene believes the solution is a whole of government approach, to cover environmental responsibility and to ensure water is shared fairly and equitably between users.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Award winners

Environmental Sustainability Project Award, sponsored by Morphum Environmental, was won by Te Ara Awataha on behalf of Eke Panuku Development Auckland, with the support of Kāinga Ora, Auckland City Council, Nga Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau. Pictured, from left, Water New Zealand president Lorraine Kendrick; Bruce Balaei, Auckland Council’s Healthy Waters; Josh Irvine, WSP; Claire Laybourne, Joshua Wouldes, and William Gao from Kāinga Ora; Kate Cumberpatch, Eke Panuku; Zaelene Maxwell-Butler of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki; and Bridget Fitzgerald, Morphum.

The Project Award, sponsored by Pipeline and Civil, was won by Bay Dynamics for the Te Maunga Outfall Clearance & Inspection, in conjunction with Tauranga City Council and Pacific Diving. Matt Mooney collected the trophy for the team. Bay Dynamics also won the Health and Safety Innovation Award, sponsored by Site Safe New Zealand, for the Te Maunga Outfall Clearance & Inspection in conjunction with Tauranga City and Pacific Diving.

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Young Water Professional of the Year sponsored by Beca was won by Sifa Pole of Watercare Services.

The Operations Prize, sponsored by IXOM, was won by Thomas Tran of Watercare Services for his initiative, Launder & Re-use Water Hypo Dosing System.

Hynds Paper of the Year was won by Beyond Consents: Watercare's journey to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi by Te Tuanui Paki from Watercare Services, pictured here with Kuiarangi Paki.

Hynds Paper of the Year - Silver Winner was for research undertaken to improve sustainability and reduce costs of BNR plants by Liam Tamplin (pictured), Craig White and Jayden Ball from Beca Hunter H2O

Hynds Presentation of the Year was won by Water Watchers – Watching Tauranga's Water for Good, by Ryan Orr from GHD (left) and Peter Bahrs from Tauranga City Council.

Trility Young Author of the Year Award was won by Jane Kubala of Watercare Services for Watercare’s new multi-purpose training facility – enhancing training across the construction industry.

Water Trainee of the Year sponsored by Citycare Water was won by Ashleigh Crewe-Brown of Watercare Services.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

New Honorary Life Members Helen Atkins Michael Hannah Wally Potts

5S Emerging Water Professional Conference Attendance Prize winners Ronald Hicks Memorial Award, sponsored by Mott MacDonald, was won by Ollie Whalley from Tonkin + Taylor, supported by co-authors Warren Biggs from Nelson City Council and Clint Rissmann from Land and Water Science, for the paper “Measurement Towards Mitigation – Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Nelson Wastewater Treatment Plant”.

Poster of the Year sponsored by Tonkin + Taylor was won by Patrick O'Connor of ProjectMax for his poster A Cost-Effective Approach to Reducing Inflow and Infiltration – Level Monitoring. In his winning poster, judges say Patrick presented a clear summary of a project that used low-cost noncontact level sensors to monitor levels in manholes throughout the sewer network, during and after rain events. The magnitude of level spikes during rainfall identified stormwater inflow in the minicatchment, and the gradual reduction in level after a rain event indicated groundwater infiltration. The low cost and ability to install each instrument in only a few minutes, without any confined space entry, made this approach stand out over traditional methods of I&I measurement. See his poster on the opposite page.

Blake Brown, Stantec Lucy Trethewey, Pattle Delamore Partners Maddie Irving, Fulton Hogan Sarah Innes, Watercare Services Steven Whyte, Pattle Delamore Partners

New 5S New Zealand chapter members Gillian Blythe Daniel Gapes

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A Cost-Effective Approach to Reducing Inflow & Infiltration – Level Monitoring Summary

Benefits

Inflow and Infiltration (I&I) into wastewater networks has a high environmental and economic cost in New Zealand. Typically, there are high costs associated with detecting and reducing I&I, and the consequences of wastewater overflows are often highly publicised and scrutinised.

•

Rapid deployment – Sensors can be installed in 20 minutes with no confined space entry requirements.

•

Rapid results – Monitoring period of 30-60 days. Raw data is available immediately upon retrieval of sensors. Analysis and reporting provided within 7 days.

•

Considerably less expensive than other more sophisticated wastewater gauging methods.

•

Focus remedial work on areas that will provide the largest return on investment.

•

Repeat monitoring following remedial work to confirm if a measurable reduction in I&I has been achieved.

Rapid deployment of ultrasonic level sensors in manholes within a catchment is a cost-effective and simple method of determining which portions of the catchment are the ‘leakiest’. This enables asset managers to more reliably develop strategies to target these portions of the catchment for remedial work that will provide the biggest return on investment. Following remedial work, sensors can be redeployed to determine the effectiveness of the work to provide asset managers with confidence that the desired results have been achieved.

Detect: Groundwater Infiltration

Blockages

Surcharging

Stormwater Inflow

Overflows

Effectiveness Testing

Combine level readings with localised rainfall data 140

120

Significant peaks during wet weather events indicate significant stormwater inflow.

100

0 8/10

8/20

8/30

9/9

9/19

9/29

10/9

250

Significant peak during a large wet weather event followed by a gradual decline in flow as groundwater infiltration decreases.

200

150

100

0 23/1

Prioritise mini-catchments by which are likely to provide the biggest return on investment MiniCatchment

Ground Water Volume (l/day)

GW Volume per property (l/property/day)

Ranking of GW (per property)

01 02 03 04

150480 94320 17957 40118

498 220 599 1029

5 8 4 3

05 06 07 08

3643

228

59184 16560 57600

2041 394 3388

2 6 1

2/2

7/2

12/2

17/2

22/2

27/2

4/3

9/3

Screen a large area to identify if the level of I&I in the area is problematic and identify if more extensive monitoring in the area is worthwhile.

14/3

Potential partial blockage downstream causing the flow to back up within the manhole. Sensors can also measure if and to what extent the water level rose above the pipe soffit.

200

150

100

4/2

4/7

4/12

4/17

Deploy sensors

4/22

4/27

5/2

08 13% 07 4%

01 34%

06 14%

05 1% 04 9% 03 4%

02 21%

Phase 2

Divide the area into several smaller mini-catchments and monitor to focus remedial work on the portions of the catchment that would provide the most cost-benefit.

5/7

Analysis and Reporting

40 – 60 days Monitoring and reporting time

Total Ground Water Volume

Subsequent monitoring to focus remedial works Phase 1

28/1

250

0 3/28

Discover and prioritise ‘leakiest’ mini-catchments

Remedial Work

Focus intervention on high priority areas that provide the highest ROI

Post remedial work monitoring

Measure reduction in I&I

40 – 60 days Monitoring and reporting time

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Practical steps to drive down water loss Water New Zealand’s Water Efficiency and Conservation Network (WECAN) hosted a workshop at the conference to share ideas of practical steps being taken across the industry to drive down water losses. Your best ‘next step’ will depend on the level of maturity for your organisation, and Water New Zealand has good resources to guide you, as committee member Evan Atkinson explains. “What are the drivers for your organisation to take action on water loss?” was the opening question posed by Christine McCormack at the start of the workshop, challenging participants to reflect the specific drivers for their communities. Universally, we expect a safe and adequate supply of water to our homes and workplaces, but increasingly this balance of supply and demand is under pressure. In balancing this equation, Christine pointed to the key elements of water resource planning: maintaining access to existing supplies (especially in a climate impacted environment); reducing water demand (and losses); and the addition of new water sources (the most complex and costly option). Feedback from participants highlighted real concerns around simply securing renewals to existing water consents where ‘demonstration of efficient use of water’ is a core requirement. Likewise, the importance of preserving ‘social licence’, given councils’ default response to a shortfall during dry periods is often to ask the public to change their behaviour. As network operators, we need to ask ourselves whether we’re doing our part first, before disruption impacts our communities. Throughout this discussion a common reference point was around giving effect to Te Mana o te Wai, in how we manage what is a precious resource. For councils and water professionals tackling these challenges, the starting point may simply be to understand how well you are doing, and what the next step toward an improved situation might look like. This year, the Water New Zealand Water Loss Guidelines were updated, and lead author Richard Taylor explained how these are a great resource for understanding your organisation’s current competence across the three core elements of water loss management: manage, measure and monitor. A logical question posed by those working in this area is “What does success look like?”. In response, the overview guide provides two key resources: A quantitative performance table for nominal water losses per connection according to your network size (see table on facing page), and a qualitative ‘Water Loss Maturity Matrix’ describing what the ‘core’, ‘intermediate’, and ‘advanced’ for each component looks like. Using these tools, you can evaluate

26 www.waternz.org.nz

the maturity of your organisation’s current practices and identify what an improved situation might look like or require. Across the participants in the workshop, there was a wide spectrum of maturity, from those who didn’t readily know their organisation’s key annual water supply and water loss metrics, through to some with automated dashboards, universal metering and customer apps. The water conservation benefits of taking those kinds of next steps were evident in several case-study presentations from contributing councils. Elliot Smith of Wellington Water described the journey his company has taken from irregular and manual water loss calculations through to automated business intelligence analytics of zone-by-zone water loss. Their innovative inhouse solution also tracks the identification and completion of leak repair work orders. This journey has taken Wellington Water from being “data rich but analytics poor”, to providing business wide data driven insights of network performance, zone by zone across 156 DMAs.

Universal metering

The positive impacts on water consumption patterns following the implementation of universal metering at Tauranga City Council were presented by Jack Furnish. The introduction of universal metering in 1999 resulted in an immediate reduction in water consumption – a trend that continued year on year, driving an overall reduction from 450 to 280 litres/person/day. Importantly, these reductions “pushed back the need for an additional water source by 17 years”, during a period where an additional 40,000 additional residents were added to the city. David Moore of Watercare, also shared his insights from the Global Leakage Summit, held this September in London. A real point of difference in the UK was the focus on pressure management as a cost-effective method of water loss reduction. This focus on reducing network pressures either through rezoning or dynamic management is a powerful mechanism for driving down the quantity of water lost through existing network vulnerabilities. Addressing real network losses requires a significant investment, which the UK utilities are making. Interestingly, while Watercare’s

per capita consumption is currently on-par with comparable UK utilities, some UK utilities are dedicating the equivalent of 15 times more frontline staff for actively identifying and addressing network leaks. Closing this gap will require both investment of funds, but also in the training of skilled staff. Overall, the workshop demonstrated that there are many ways to approach this shared challenge. Participants were able to share both their challenges, and their practical ideas for advancing our organisational maturity in tackling losses. If you are interested in taking your own next step, we’d

encourage you to check out the updated Water Loss Guidelines resources available in the technical documents section of the Water New Zealand website. The overview is an easy-to-read executive introduction to this topic, that is supplemented by the detailed reference, along with some practical Excel-based resources. You’ll find them in the Water New Zealand resource hub: waternz.org.nz/resourcehub. Likewise, if you want to connect with the WECAN community, feel free to share your ideas and connect with our chair Julian Fyfe, julian.fyfe@awa.kiwi. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CONFERENCE

Transforming lives through WaterAid We’re not just about water, we’re about transforming people’s lives using water, sanitation and good hygiene to do that. This was the message from WaterAid Australia’s corporate partnership manager Mark Trembath when he spoke to the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023.

Water Aid provided a pipe and two water tanks to a village in Timor Leste, installing a tap on a concrete pad for a safe and clean point of water collection.

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Mark told the audience about the effect that a lack of access to clean water has on the individual lives of more than 770 million people in the world. Mostly, he said, the burden is borne by women and girls, who spend much of their day walking for hours to carry water back to their homes. Earlier this year, Water New Zealand formalised our relationship with WaterAid Australia through an MoU aimed at providing more opportunities for members to get involved and help support clean water initiatives in the Pacific. Mark says, that as well as the shocking number of people who don’t have access to clean water, more than 1.7-billion people, that’s one in five, do not have a decent toilet of their own. “There are hundreds of millions of people every day still performing open defecation, which is a real sad fact when we’re talking in 2023.” Again, the lack of toilets and hygiene as well as the task of carrying water predominantly affects girls, severely disrupting their education and thereby putting them in a cycle of poverty and dependence on a male. That’s why WaterAid globally has been working hard to improve access to clean water for marginalised communities, especially women and girls, and there were some good results in 2021-22. “In hygiene, there are 1.7 million households, over 400,000 schools, and nearly seven million patients in healthcare facilities that have benefited from the hygiene programmes that we’ve presented.” Mark says WaterAid Australia is fortunate in being well supported by the Australian water sector, particularly the water utilities. That support has been vital in recent years as Covid hit many impoverished communities very hard – places like Papua New Guinea. “Hygiene was never needed more than during the pandemic.” Fortunately, the Australian water sector support allowed programmes to continue and for hygiene campaigns during the pandemic to ramp up the distribution of innovative hand-washing facilities.

But despite some gains, there’s still a huge task ahead. So how can you support WaterAid? One way is to get involved in voluntary committees. There’s also Walk for Water – a huge annual sponsored walk in October. Plus, there’s the employee development programme Winnovators challenge, where teams from within organisations work together to develop real solutions for real challenges in the communities that WaterAid work in. This year the Winnovators challenge had two New Zealand teams compete. One team from Wellington Water, as well as the overall winners, Watercare’s Wai Forward, with their solution to a healthcare waste management challenge for rural healthcare facilities in Timor-Leste. Watercare and Wellington Water were competing against teams like Sydney Water, SEQ Water, and Greater Western Water. It’s the first time that teams from New Zealand have entered the competition and Mark confessed to being quietly delighted to see a Kiwi victory in spite of the usual trans-Tasman rivalries. Read more about their winning solution in the following story. “Next year is WaterAid’s 20th anniversary. A very special edition of Winnovators will be run and we hope to see more teams from Aotearoa New Zealand compete.” You can also find out more about WaterAid Australia on their website wateraid.org/au/. Unfiltered spring water was transported over a kilometre from the source to the Timor Leste village via an open bamboo conduit, with no storage.

Kiwi team on top in Winnovators competition Watercare team ‘Wai Forward’ puts its recent win of the WaterAid Winnovators programme down to collaboration, innovation and dedication to the cause. The team – Abby Barry, Bernice Chiam, Divya Kataria, Gail Meintjies, Natasha Fernandes, Ravi Kalinga, Sunny Singh, Thea Abhay and Zac Martin – designed a solution for healthcare waste management challenges for rural healthcare facilities in Timor-Leste. They also smashed the AUD$5000 fundraising target, raising AUD$13,801 through activities like bake sales, a quiz night and a silent auction. Natasha led the solution development and says it was a great opportunity to engage her problem-solving skills. “It was interesting learning about medical waste management within rural developing settings. Our solution consisted of a fourstep approach aimed at addressing the sustainable management of waste products generated by medical facilities in TimorLeste.

“Our approach was holistic in nature, encompassing community-led educational programmes, environmentally friendly incineration methods, recycling and reusing of metals and glass, all while fostering economic growth for the people of Timor-Leste.” She says balancing fundraising and solution development on top of the team’s everyday work commitments was often a challenge, but it was worth the effort. “I found it really rewarding knowing the research and funds we put forward to WaterAid has the potential to genuinely improve the lives of people in developing countries who go without clean water, and good hygiene and sanitation facilities.” Ravi says being part of the challenge was a good opportunity to develop his communication and leadership skills. “I was the team’s fundraising lead, which involved liaising with different people for different events. Chief executive Dave Chambers really championed our team and it was great to have that support. Watercare matched our fundraising up to NZ$5000, which made a big difference.”

Gail says being part of Winnovators was a phenomenal experience. “I had no idea about the waste management challenges that the TimorLeste community faces and this opened my mind to insight I’d never considered.” As part of the ‘solve’ piece, she worked on understanding the roadworks and current infrastructure in place in Timor-Leste and did research on uncovering how waste is transported and what difficulties the communities face. “It was so insightful – something we take for granted here proved to be such a challenge in Timor-Leste, and really got my brain working.” She says the team worked well together to overcome challenges like finding the time to get together and supporting one another with the fundraising events. “We were definitely a super strong team and I’m proud to have been part of Wai Forward as the pioneers (and winners!) representing Winnovators for Watercare.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

Advertorial

Timely solutions for a challenging site Reliable water data is essential to making good decisions around effective water management and treatment solutions. Penny Vergeest, general manager, BPO, writes how the team at BPO got creative to provide reliable data in a remote location in an extremely tight time frame. In late 2021 post Covid lockdowns, a wood processing facility required help with its looming resource consent deadlines. Three new monitoring stations were needed, as well as an upgrade to an existing station. The limitation was that three of these stations needed to be live before April 1, 2022 to meet resource consent deadlines. The project was to have commenced earlier, however Covid lockdowns had had a profound impact on the timber processing facility’s overall timeline. Due to equipment requirements and work schedules, meeting this tight deadline was impossible. Constructing three open channel flow measurement structures in a remote location as well as incorporating pH, temperature, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen, which all required off grid power, and then integrating the stations via telemetry into the site automation network was going to be challenging, and would require some innovative engineering solutions.

Working to a tight deadline

Fast deployment and reliable equipment were a key requirement, and universal monitoring platforms were ideal for this project. The units provided by BPO were equipped with off the grid power equipment via solar panels and on board storage. The universal monitoring platforms have inbuilt telemetry and options to mount customised instrumentation if required. These platforms were essential to this project, as there were less than 75 days to design and build two of the open channel flow structures, assemble and configure instrumentation for three of the locations, and deploy equipment into these remote locations, along with commissioning, tuning and verifying the equipment all before the client’s deadline.

Site challenges

At one of the remote locations, there were no roads to the access point. The only solution was to crane the mounted platform into a deep gully off a forestry road - one that was being used continuously by logging trucks. The logistics of organising this was demanding, but this deep gully would present other challenges as the limited sunlight hours of winter were shortened even more by the location of the sun and the depth of the gully. Another difficulty in this location was flow measurement, where flowing aggregate was blinding the velocity sensor on the area velocity flow meter and distorting the data. Fortunately, the team was able to overcome this issue quickly by adding a large stainless steel plate under the flow transmitter and weekly servicing. Over the course of several months, the client was able to access reliable and real time data from these platforms and meet their resource consent deadline. Once the equipment arrived to replace the temporary platforms, construction was able to commence on the permanent installations. Having months of reliable data history allowed this permanent installation to be completed quickly and this historical data was vital to ensuring a seamless transition for the organisation.

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The final part of this project was the flow structure in the gully that had to be craned into place. The timing of this needed significant coordination with the production schedule of the plant to avoid any business disruptions. Once this was completed, there was significant work to be done characterising the relationship between flow in the structure and level in the structure to develop a level/flow table, so that ongoing monitoring could be achieved with a non-intrusive unguided radar level transmitter. In July 2023 the project was successfully completed on time and handed over to the client. The real benefit for the client was their ability to see what was happening in real time and being confident in the reliable data that was being produced. This enabled them to make decisions and adjustments to their initial permanent installations based on accurate information they would not have necessarily had prior to commencing the project.

The importance of accurate data

With the changes to compliance requirements and the increased responsibilities on industry and organisations to be able to accurately understand their water and wastewater characteristics, it has never been more important to accurately measure water. While permanent monitoring techniques and equipment remain important tools, it is also important to have practical solutions, like the universal monitoring platforms available for sites for which there is no historical data or have unusual challenges. The importance of accurate data has often been overlooked, due to the difficulty of site accessibility and sourcing equipment, this can lead to clients being designed solutions for their projects that are not fit for purpose and actually have a negative impact on their business operations and the environment. It is much easier to design a permanent monitoring installation when there is accurate data on which to base the design. Accurate data allows organisations the vital information to make sensible and cost-effective decisions around water management and ultimately being environmentally responsible for their wastewater.

COMMENT WATER NEW ZEALAND

Urgent need for certainty in the water sector Water New Zealand is urging the government to quickly address the uncertainty over the future of the three waters sector and support the urgent need for investment to address the infrastructure deficit. Water New Zealand chief executive Gillian Blythe says it’s clear the current 67 water provider model is not sustainable. “Without consolidation, water services delivery and environmental outcomes will continue to decline. “Across the country we’re seeing the stresses on the water sector on an almost weekly basis, whether it’s unsafe drinking water, pipe leakages, sewage spilling into the environment, rivers and beaches that are unsafe to swim in, and more flooding and storms.” She says that if the government opts for voluntary consolidation, it would be important to ensure no council misses out and become ‘orphaned’ due to historic under-investment or future environmental compliance challenges. “It is vital that changes to the reforms retain the scale and efficiencies needed to address the affordability issues.

Balance sheet separation

“It’s also important that there is balance sheet separation to enable the massive amount of investment – up to $185-billion dollars over the 30 years – needed to upgrade our infrastructure.” In a briefing to the incoming minister, Gillian Blythe said there is an urgent need to avoid an investment hiatus and enable a well-defined, committed and funded pipeline of work. “Certainty for the future direction is vital. Investment in renewals and improvements in levels of services is expected to drop as councils do not know whether future planned and necessary investment will be borne by ratepayers, or by consumers under an alternative entity model. “There is a risk any ongoing uncertainty will result in a decline in workforce capability as skilled staff

move overseas or into areas with more certainty. “We’re also seeing the effects of climate change across the country and this is putting a lot of pressure on many councils already struggling with the prospect of meeting new drinking water safety regulatory requirements. “Many communities, including ratepayers, will be facing huge cost increases simply to maintain services if the three waters reforms do not provide for more economies of scale.”

The need for regulation

She says there is a need for strong regulation. “Appropriately funded regulation will help to ensure economically efficient investment in water infrastructure, compliance with drinking water standards and improve the environmental performance of wastewater and stormwater network. We need to restore and preserve the balance between water, the environment, and people. “Having Te Mana o te Wai at the core of water services enables a stronger and healthier relationship with water which is essential to life.” She says that working in partnership with mana whenua and communities to share their knowledge and make intergenerational decisions respects and honours Te Mana o te Wai, Te Tiriti o Waitangi /Treaty of Waitangi and helps to ensure better long-term decisions and outcomes. Water New Zealand is looking forward to working with the new government to reform the sector, and deliver the transformation needed to ensure affordable, safe, clean, and healthy water. Go to the submissions page on our website at waternz.org.nz to see the full briefing document. NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND COMMENT

Water stewardship:

Ensuring fresh water for present and future generations By Ken Macdonald, sector director – water, Tonkin + Taylor Ask a lay person for their definition of ‘water stewardship’ and typical answers might include the care of water, ensuring the safety of water, or something along those lines. Water stewardship is a term that many of you will have already heard of, but it is tremendously important. Although the term has come into use in the past 2030 years, the concept is not new – many indigenous and First Nations peoples have been practising elements of what we think of as water stewardship for generations. Water stewardship has become both a term that acts as a ‘gathering place’ for those many traditional and historic aspects, as well as providing a focal point for innovation and new developments. Here, making sure we understand what water stewardship is, how it interfaces with international practice, and how we can continue to develop our approach with water stewardship is an essential part of developing our relationship with water. Once we understand that, we can have a more informed approach ahead of crucial and related conversations – especially with how we give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai.

Defining water stewardship

Water stewardship is a growing international practice involving major international organisations, environmental, humanitarian and development agencies, along with communities, businesses, and public sector organisations. Much of this drive comes from the fact that, across the globe, there is a general understanding and increasing awareness of the importance of water and how we can and need to live with the finite water that we have.

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The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) defines water stewardship as “using water in a way that is socially equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically beneficial. This is achieved through a stakeholder inclusive process that involves site and catchment-based actions”. In the definition given by UNIDO, the clause, “a stakeholder inclusive process that involves site and catchment-based actions” dovetails nicely into the concept of Te Mana o Te Wai.

Indigenous water stewardship and Te Mana o Te Wai The concept of Te Mana o Te Wai is unique to Aotearoa New Zealand, but the drive to establish better outcomes for water through recognising, including and engaging with indigenous and First Nations peoples around the world is picking up momentum. Canada and Australia have their own respective challenges and chequered histories with water stewardship and indigenous communities. Diving into the detail and intricacies for both countries deserves their own articles, but in summary, meaningful indigenous stakeholder engagement is being adopted into their processes and progress is beginning to trend in a positive direction. Our inclusion of indigenous perspectives and Te Ao Māori principles is further along than those in Canada and Australia, and while there is still a tremendous amount of work to do, Te Mana o Te Wai is a good start and will have significant influence on the water sector. Te Mana o Te Wai is defined as “the concept that refers to the fundamental importance of water and recognises

that protecting the health of freshwater protects the health and well-being of the wider environment”. It protects the mauri (life force) of the wai (water). Te Mana o te Wai is about restoring and preserving the balance between the water, the wider environment, and the community. Te Mana o Te Wai is comprised of six principles – with stewardship being one of them: Mana whakahaere: the power, authority, and obligations of tangata whenua to make decisions that maintain, protect, and sustain the health and well-being of, and their relationship with, freshwater. Kaitiakitanga: the obligations of tangata whenua to preserve, restore, enhance, and sustainably use freshwater for the benefit of present and future generations. Manaakitanga: the process by which tangata whenua show respect, generosity, and care for freshwater and for others. Governance: the responsibility of those with authority for making decisions about freshwater to do so in a way that prioritises the health and well-being of freshwater now and into the future. Stewardship: the obligations of all New Zealanders to manage freshwater in a way that ensures it sustains present and future generations. Care and respect: the responsibility of all New Zealanders to care for freshwater in providing for the health of the nation. There is a hierarchy of obligations in Te Mana o te Wai that prioritises, firstly, the health and well-being of water bodies and freshwater ecosystems, secondly, the health needs of people (such as drinking water), and thirdly, the ability of people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being, now and in the future.

What steps can you take?

One of the keys to effective water stewardship and creating positive contributions that give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai is placing and working with site-based actions in the context of the communities and water catchments that you are located within. Site-based actions bring benefits including a consistent and easily comparable set of actions and achievements, credible and publishable progress, a tangible connection to wider stewardship initiatives, and involvement with local communities and stakeholders. They also help take an ‘in-catchment’ perspective and provide links to broader disclosure initiatives – such as those run by non-profit charity, CDP. Beyond that, working with your supply chain to identify and optimise water-cycle interactions is a step that will recognise the fact that much of the water use in production, manufacturing

and operational activities is upstream or downstream of the facility. Other practical actions include, taking site/organisation action ; getting involved in a certified programmesuch as the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS); engaging with the public – collaborate, advocate, and communicate; being open to challenge, change, and looking to innovate; and embracing and understanding the true values of water.

What’s next?

If we want to carry out water stewardship with a forward-facing view, then integrating it into water resilience and climate strategies in our businesses and at wider geographic scale is imperative. As experts in the water sector, we also need to broaden our involvement and influence in supply chains and constantly seek innovative solutions. New technologies will be increasingly available to us, and we need to plan

better, work collaboratively, and think boldly. Embracing and including historic and cultural values, approaches, and methods will influence a collective way forward towards healthy and robust catchments. Good water stewards also understand their own water use, catchment context and shared risk in terms of water governance, water balance, water quality and important water related areas. With this understanding, we can engage in meaningful individual and collective actions that benefit people and nature. This is a crucial time for water, and there are actions and opportunities for all of us. We as water stewards have a responsibility to preserve, restore, enhance, and sustainably use freshwater. Let’s move forward together for the benefit of present and future generations. This commentary is based on a thought leadership presentation at the Water Conference and Expo 2023.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND PROFILE

In pursuit of a better environment A childhood flood event made an indelible mark on Liam Foster’s memory, and is perhaps what sparked his career in water, where he is now a specialist in all things flooding. He’s keen to share what he has learned in his years in the industry. By Mary Searle Bell Liam describes his childhood as ‘fortunate’. With his father employed by an oil company, young Liam travelled the world with his family. “I grew up in some far-flung places – Oman, Nigeria, The Netherlands – and was exposed to many different cultures that have shaped my values and approach.” While living in Oman, Liam experienced his first flood. “It was a flash flood that happened while we were camping in a wadi. It was fun and a great lark for the kids, but a dangerous and stressful experience for our parents – they still talk about it.” At the age of 10, Liam settled into school in England, where he would play in the woods near his school, having great fun damming the streams. As geography was his favourite subject, he chose to pursue it further at university. “I did a joint honours degree in geography and geology. I loved the natural sciences – the mountains, the hills and streams. I enjoyed the learning and growing opportunities at university so much, I stayed and did my master’s degree in water resources, technology and management. “When I finished, I still wasn’t ready to enter the real world, so I put that off by taking a gap year, which I started with some volunteer work in Zimbabwe for a couple of months before travelling through Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and North America.” In 2000, Liam entered the ‘real world’, taking a graduate role with MWH in Wakefield, near Leeds in the UK, working in wastewater hydraulic modelling. “Professor Balmforth was an early mentor of mine – what he didn’t know about weir coefficients and urban drainage wasn’t worth knowing. He left an indelible mark on my career with sage advice about the industry, such as learning how to manage your manager to get the opportunities to grow your career.” Deciding he was more of a people person, Liam swapped modelling for a role with more human interaction, working as a hydrologist with MWH for a couple of years before becoming a water resources scientist. As part of this role, he travelled to New Zealand in 2004, where he was responsible for undertaking contaminated land remediation projects and hydro geological assessments for Mobil NZ, to reduce the risks of contamination of groundwaters, streams, and estuaries from ageing below ground storage tanks. “I was also working on several projects for local governments, focussing on stormwater management, watercourse assessment, and more. As part of this, I undertook a water resource study for one of

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Liam Foster

the rivers in Brunei and a flood study to support large communities understand their flood risk and resulting investigations into mitigation options. “Unfortunately, this was all done remotely from Auckland and I didn’t get to travel to Brunei.” Crucially, this work made Liam realise that flooding was something important to him. “It is something that has a huge impact on people – both financially, socially, and emotionally. So, when I returned to the UK in 2005, I joined Hyder Consulting in Birmingham as a senior hydrologist, undertaking water cycle studies and strategic flood risk assessments.” In 2009, he moved up to become associate director – water environment, and for the next three years was responsible for the technical leadership and development of a growing flood risk and water environment team that provided specialist services to local authority and private sector clients. “Following on from this, I decided to move into the client side and joined Severn Trent Water, one of the UK’s largest water and sewerage services company, servicing communities across the Midlands. Working as its strategy serviceability manager for wastewater infrastructure, Liam says, basically, he was solving the problems of pollution to the environment and the flooding of people’s property by sewage.

“I’m proud to say that Severn Trent Water is now the top performer in the eyes of the UK water regulators for environmental performance. Although, it’s not that great – they’re the best of a bad lot! “However, we had huge successes around using the information our field teams collected to unlock network problems – through using geospatial techniques to present and interrogate it. In the beginning we simply didn’t know where or what events were happening, and the significance of this has stayed with me. “I spent a lot of time with the data and with the operational teams. We found the problems causing the regular and repeated issues could often be fixed operationally and with minimum investment. “I also came to the realisation that capex is king – finding money for operations is hard and often the first thing sacrificed in the pursuit of cost savings. Severn Trent Water was measured by investment in renewals – by kilometres of pipe laid. And this resulted in work being driven by ‘easy to do’ rather than the projects that were most needed. “I found that most of our issues stemmed from a lack of maintenance. Money was simply not being spent on upkeep. “Happily, Severn Trent is now monitoring all overflow locations and actively sharing the data with the community to expose how difficult it is to operate an underground network. When I first started working with them we had 4500 overflows but only had monitors on the 60 we believed were the worst performing. By the time I left, this coverage had grown exponentially, and we discovered some were spilling daily during peak flows. “My fear is the same problems are highly likely to occur in New Zealand unless we deliberately focus on it. While we don’t have many combined sewerage networks here, we are still getting high levels of E.coli readings in streams, suggesting wastewater is regularly spilling from the system.” Having set Severn Trent Water on the right course, Liam thought it was time to do the same for his young family. With a two-year-old daughter, the time was right to migrate to New Zealand, the place he and his wife Lyndsey had gotten engaged. “In 2014, I got a role with Opus (now WSP) in Christchurch, coming in as a principal environmental consultant, working on the land recovery drainage programme for the council following the increasing flooding issues resulting from the Canterbury earthquakes, and the flooding events of 2014. “I moved up to become a water sector leader, then a global water sector lead, responsible for the water resources and flood risk

management discipline. Following the WSP takeover of Opus in 2017, my role again focussed on the New Zealand market.” These days, Liam is still at WSP and for the past three years has been the technical principal – water, supporting the company’s water strategy, leading WSP’s approach to supporting clients and communities for water resources, climate change adaptation, and flood risk management programmes of work. Alongside all this, Liam is a keen advocate for developing people to achieve their goals in the industry. As one of a dedicated group of committee members for the New Zealand branch of CIWEM (Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental management), Liam is keen to point out the group presents an avenue for scientists and environmentalists to gain peer recognition and achieve chartered status. He says the New Zealand network provides advice, supports mentoring, and invests time in developing events that challenge the status quo, and supports the industry's capability development. “Over the next couple of years, I am looking to go on the Water New Zealand board with a focus on challenging the industry to go further and faster in self-promotion, and identifying how interesting and varied the industry is for the next generation of school kids. Too often, water is in the media for the wrong reasons. We need to get the good stories out there, as this will help attract people to the industry. “More immediately, we’re launching a high school forum at the next stormwater conference in May 2024. We will host year 12 and 13 students for a day prior to the conference. In the longer term, we will take it to younger high schoolers too.” Ultimately, Liam wants to see the environment left in a better place for the next generation. “I have learned a lot from the UK’s mistakes – good information that I’d like to pass on and a real hope that we can avoid making the same here. I have really enjoyed working with iwi and hapu groups around kaitiakitanga and learning about tikanga, and how my own values are aligned with the key outcomes sought through Te Mana o te Wai. “I hope that we can move our industry forward so that is not afraid or too proud to seek guidance from overseas; to not look to reinvent approaches here, but instead layers in all that is unique about us with all that works in many geographies across the world – driving our performance further and faster. “I think we should be open to working collaboratively: We can all learn so much from each other.”

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND PROFILE

Following her passion With her roots in India’s water scarcity and pollution problems, Rumana Sayyad is enthusiastic about improving water quality here in New Zealand, ensuring future generations of Kiwis can enjoy the water privileges inherent in our country. By Mary Searle Bell Rumana grew up in the suburbs of Mumbai, enjoying a typical childhood filled with friends and family. “I loved going to the beach, but when we’d go swimming, we’d get itchy. As I got older, rather than getting into the water, I transitioned to walking along the beach with my mother. We’d chat about how the beaches could be improved.” Life at home was also impacted by water quality and availability. “Growing up in India, we knew exactly how scarce water was. We had half an hour each day when the water was switched on and we could fill our household water tanks. Dad still wakes at 7am every day to open the valves to fill the tanks. “Sometimes there was simply no water for a day or two. I have vivid memories as a child of having to go and collect water in buckets for us to use in the house. “When I came to New Zealand and first saw people filling a glass from the tap and drinking it, I was shocked. You simply can’t do that in India. Every house has a water filter.” Rumana came here following her older sister who had immigrated. By this time, she had completed her degree in civil engineering, specialising in hydraulic engineering and had several years' work experience to her name. “My dad worked for the municipal office in Mumbai, looking after the water supply, and I believe that had an impact on my career choice.” She began work with a concrete construction firm but, after three -and-a-half years, wasn’t getting the right opportunities to make progress within the industry. This had her looking at her options. So, she decided to move to New Zealand and to do a Master’s Degree in Construction Management through AUT. In 2018, she completed her post-grad and was on the hunt for full time work when she got a call from Hynds Pipe Systems, inviting her to interview for a product support engineer role in its stormwater division. “It’s been four-and-a-half years now and I don’t see myself moving out of the sector – it’s so much fun. And not just the stormwater side of things, but also wastewater, drinking water, and more – everything we do.” One of Rumana’s most memorable projects was the design of the ‘Downstream Defenders’ for Taupo – the hydrodynamic separators that catch gross pollutants, TSS, hydrocarbons, and sediment bound metals and nutrients in the stormwater network before they reach the lake. When Taupo’s sewage pipeline burst in 2019, Rumana’s problem-solving skills were put to use helping design the stormwater treatment units that were installed during the cleanup phase. “I had to coordinate and work with hydraulic design,

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Rumana Sayyad

manufacturing, multiple departments in the company, alongside Taupo district council and the contractor at site. The Downstream Defender was designed and delivered in a record time of three weeks. “It’s my biggest achievement to date, and it’s motivated me to do much more.” Rumana was subsequently given the opportunity to look after Hynds' ‘capital region’, which covers the Wellington region, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Hawke’s Bay, and Gisborne. “I was the stormwater business development engineer for the region – it was a big role for me, and a people-facing one. Working with Wellington Water, regional councils, consultants, and contractors, my job was to understand what they wanted to achieve and to find the best possible technical solution for them.” Rumana was recently promoted again, this time to the position of national stormwater category manager, looking after the whole country. “It’s been a ride,” she says of her career trajectory with Hynds. “I absolutely love it.”

Her enthusiasm for stormwater and the wider water sector is not restricted to her job however. She joined the Water New Zealand Young Water Professionals, serving as a panel member before becoming chair of the Wellington Chapter in 2022. “When I became chair, I was able to create a whole new team comprised of engineers from different companies to ensure we get a variety of different inputs. So far, we’ve hosted four very successful events in the Wellington region. “I encourage other young water professionals who are passionate about the industry to stand up, take the lead, and share their enthusiasm.” Rumana has also recently joined the Water New Zealand Stormwater Committee. “As a supplier to the industry, we have a different way of approaching challenges, and this input can be useful and valuable.” Not content with championing stormwater and industry suppliers, Rumana is also an inspiration for women in the sector. She’s a member of the National Association of Women in Construction, which encourages women to establish and sustain successful careers in all aspects of the construction industry. “I was honoured to be named as a finalist for NAWIC’s Rising Star Awards this year, from a field of over 200 entries. I got to go to the awards ceremony in Christchurch and met lots of beautiful and inspirational women working in all parts of construction.” Looking to the future, Rumana says there’s so much to do, and so much she wants to do.

“I am currently working with Hynds to provide more sustainable products – things that have less impact on the environment, like our low carbon range. New Zealand does a lot of good things in this area but there’s always room for improvement. “We’re constantly looking for new ways to treat stormwater – we can learn from best practice all over the world and collaborate with various stakeholders within the industry. “I’m going to stick with it. There’s a lot to be done and we need all the hands we can get.” To this end, she’s also helping Hynds recruit young people to the industry through the Hynds Foundation, which offers engineering scholarships and mentorships to young engineers. “Hynds Foundation works with Manurewa High School, encouraging Year 13s to give engineering a try. We know the first year of an engineering degree can be very hard, so we provide plenty of support. If the student is not comfortable with the discipline they’ve chosen, there are plenty of different fields within the industry for them to venture into.” Rumana certainly has found her niche in the water sector here and is happily settled in Wellington with her Kiwi husband. The pair travelled to India in June, to celebrate their recent marriage with a traditional three-day-long wedding ceremony, something she describes as super exciting and overwhelming. “I caught up with everyone but confirmed I’m officially a Kiwi by only drinking bottled water while I was there – it’s not worth the risk.”

Anticipating an Exciting Future in 2024! Infrapipe is a leading New Zealand manufacturer and supplier of PE 100 profile pipe technology throughout New Zealand. Infrapipe stands out in the marketplace by utilizing cutting-edge European Krah technology for the sustainable manufacturing of the highest-quality products. We manufacture the largest PE pipe size range in New Zealand of up to DN/ID 3,200mm. Our business is continually enhancing and evolving as we increase our product range and market presence in various sectors and industries. Our knowledgeable sales team, combined with the expertise of our engineering team, can meet precise project specifications and requirements while providing a cost-effective solution. Infrapipe supplies product ranges for different applications and usages. We guarantee our products are one of the strongest engineered pipes on the market, allowing us to be at the forefront of current market spaces and emerging ones. Our large Infrapipe Spiral caters for sewer, stormwater, and low-pressure applications.

infrapipe.co.nz

Recapping 2023: Successes and Anticipations for 2024

Our team recently had an incredibly enjoyable experience attending the annual water conference, undoubtedly the most prominent event on the water sector calendar. We thoroughly enjoyed engaging in discussions about our cuttingedge product ranges and promoting the recent addition to our portfolio – the Infrapipe’s Ecopipe product range is an environmentally friendly HDPE culvert newly launched pressure pipe product line. The opportunity to connect with pipe for farming and forestry using recycled material. As a company, we industry experts and share our expertise was a highlight from the three-day consistently obtain certifications to ensure our products meet or exceed conference and we look forward to attending again next year! industry standards for reliability and durability. Infrapipe Spiral and Ecopipe adhere to the ISO Type 5 Scheme's regulations, surpassing AS/NZS 5065:2005 Infrapipe is gearing up for an exciting year ahead, with a strong focus on requirements. enhancing partnerships with merchants. This progression will allow us to expand into new markets, provide cost-effective and innovative solutions to We pride ourselves on being sustainable manufacturers within the civil existing markets and end users, and heighten our commitments to sustainable infrastructure market space. All our products have an asset life in excess of manufacturing. Our specialized pressure pipe product range is designed 100 years. A majority of Ecopipe is manufactured using recycled materials, exclusively for merchants. Additionally, we are actively working to increase such as civil trade waste. We are continually striving to ensure minimal our collaboration with the merchant channel, specifically for our Infrapipe wastage occurs throughout our manufacturing process. Ecopipe is one of the Spiral, in the context of culverts, tanks, and civil projects. We look forward to many ways we have promoted and implemented circular closed-loop cycles working with new industry leaders and exploring untapped opportunities for and product stewardship throughout the business. You can download the form responsible business practices. We hope you look forward to and eagerly on our website to arrange deliveries. anticipate the next chapter in Infrapipe's journey!

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND HISTORY

The bottle that speaks of the past Sometime in the 1880s a ginger beer bottle was discarded in the headwaters of Papawai Stream in Mt Cook, Wellington. We will never know who threw away the bottle after savouring the sweet liquid at a time when potable drinking water was increasingly unattainable in the fledgeling capital city, but it serves as a stark reminder that the decisions we make today have a legacy for future generations. By Stu Farrant. The ginger beer swilling litterer could have been a road builder working on the precipitous hills of Brooklyn above, or a builder crafting heartwood native timber into another distinction villa, or it was perhaps a council employee checking on the rudimentary brick dams used to capture and divert fresh water to homes in the growing suburb of Te Aro below. It may even have been cast aside by a curious recent immigrant exploring the headwaters of the Papawai marvelling at the bizarre indigenous fish that were so different to the species of the Europe they had left behind. We will obviously never know. At the time the bottle was discarded, Wellington was still intersected by a lattice of open streams which flowed from the recently deforested hills to the tidal estuaries that flanked the shimmering Te Whanganui a Tara: the Great Harbour of Tara. Reclamation had already shunted the western coastline from Lambton to Jervois Quays but to the south, the tidal flats recently raised by the 1855 earthquake extended unmodified to Te Aro Pa, where the park of the same name now sits. As the town of Wellington grew, a sense of change was in the air. The culturally significant Kumutoto Stream had been piped around 20 years previously and plans to create an expansive shipping channel and turning basin had been abandoned following the seismic uplift of 1855. Wellingtonians were already becoming aware of the perils of life alongside the open waterways and ‘drainage’ was a core focus for the early council as they tried to ‘tame’ the landscape.

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Alongside stormwater, drinking water was also increasingly tenuous. In 1871 James Hector reported to the Wellington Water Supply Committee that “no water collected from within the crowded part of the city, from either wells or house taps is safe or proper for human consumption”. When John Lewin (J. L.) Bacon arrived in the booming capital in 1874, the construction of the Karori water supply reservoir was still four years away and he saw an opportunity. Safe and reliable drinking water was needed and the source lay deep below the suburb of Te Aro. For millennia, pure rainwater had soaked through the podocarp cloaked hills feeding abundant streams like Papawai and slowly recharging the extensive aquifer that lay deep in the fractured greywacke beneath the wetlands at the lower end of Waitangi Stream. Bacon seized the moment, supplying aerated water, ginger beer and cordial from his bore and factory on lower Tory Street. Immediately behind the bustling factory, the increasingly putrid waters of the Moturoa Stream provided a convenient ‘drain’ for Bacon, doubling as an open sewer for large parts of Te Aro. It was at this point in time that someone bought themselves a refreshing bottle of J. L. Bacon’s finest and mindlessly cast it aside in the hills above Wellington. But the water story was not all fizz and fun for Mr Bacon. As typhoid ravaged Te Aro, Bacon fell victim to the merciless illness in 1891. A victim of a mindset where our streams had become conduits for raw sewage discharging into the inner harbour on the doorstep of Te Aro Pa.

Above: When John Lewin (J. L.) Bacon arrived in the booming capital in 1874, the construction of the Karori water supply reservoir was still four years away and he saw an opportunity. Bacon seized the moment, supplying aerated water, ginger beer and cordial from his bore and factory on lower Tory Street. Opposite top: Globally innovative domestic refuse powered ‘waste to energy’ plant, affectionately named ‘The Destructor’ on the site of the current Waitangi Park. This generated steam to power pumps taking untreated wastewater to the Moa Point outfall on the south coast.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND HISTORY

Just as city leaders like Mayor Samuel Brown were waking up to the devastating consequences of using freshwater streams as open sewers, the typhoid outbreak of 189092 demanded change. A Foxton flax farmer, coal merchant, and central figure in the roll out of Wellington's first steam-powered trams, Mayor Brown had vision. He oversaw the delivery of the then globally innovative domestic refuse powered ‘waste to energy’ plant, affectionately named ‘The Destructor’ on the site of the current Waitangi Park. This generated steam to powered pumps taking untreated wastewater to the Moa Point outfall on the south coast. The reticulated sewer pipes and tunnels which connected the city to the coast are the same troublesome pipes that continue to cause headaches for us today. A pioneer in the earliest days of urban Wellington, Bacon recognised the need for safe drinking water, saw the rampant desecration of our precious freshwater streams, and paid the ultimate price for poorly managed wastewater system. It’s hard not to reflect on the criticality of decisions made at this time when they could have shaped a radically different city to what we grapple with today. Fast forward 140 years and I find myself, early on a Saturday morning, clambering up the incised and sodden headwaters of Papawai Stream to document the ongoing adverse impacts of our continued mismanagement of urban stormwater (see story on page 56). The headwaters of Papawai are one of the few remaining reaches of the once extensive network of streams but are now subjected to persistent scour and erosion from unmitigated stormwater. As I rounded a bend, the 140 year old clay J.L. Bacon ginger beer bottle was dislodged from the bank for me to pick up before it was shattered by the pounding flows. Call it coincidence, serendipity or a tohu, this beautiful clay bottle which had hidden for 140 years revealed itself at a time when we are still grappling with how to better manage our stormwater, drinking water, wastewater and, of course, the freshwater on which we all rely. The bottle has also revealed a connection to a time when we had a chance to truly respect Te Mana o Te Wai and highlights for me the importance of understanding the legacy of decisions we make today on the world we create for future generations to inherit. How will the decisions we make now be regarded in another 140 years?

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Just as city leaders like Mayor Samuel Brown were waking up to the devastating consequences of using freshwater streams as open sewers, the typhoid outbreak of 1890-92 demanded change.

At the time the bottle was discarded, Wellington was still intersected by a lattice of open streams which flowed from the recently deforested hills to the tidal estuaries that flanked the shimmering Te Whanganui a Tara: the Great Harbour of Tara.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND ANCIENT HISTORY

Ancient Maya reservoirs offer lessons for today’s water crises The Maya built and maintained reservoirs that were in use for more than 1000 years, writes University of Illinois UrbanaChampaign anthropology professor Lisa Lucero. These reservoirs provided potable water for thousands to tens of thousands of people in cities during the annual, five-month dry season and in periods of prolonged drought. “Most major southern lowland Mayan cities emerged in areas that lacked surface water but had great agricultural soils,” Lisa says. “They compensated by constructing reservoir systems that started small and grew in size and complexity.” Over time, the Maya built canals, dams, sluices and berms to direct, store and transport water. They used quartz sand for water filtration, sometimes importing it from great distances to massive cities like Tikal in what is now northern Guatemala. A sediment core from one of Tikal’s reservoirs also found that zeolite sand had been used in its construction. Previous studies have shown that this volcanic sand can filter impurities and diseasecausing microbes from water. The zeolite also would have been imported from sources about 30 kilometres away. “Tikal’s reservoirs could hold more than 900,000 cubic meters of water.” Estimates suggest that up to 80,000 people lived in the city and its environs in the Late Classic period, roughly 600 to 800 C.E. The reservoirs kept people and crops hydrated during the dry season. Mayan royalty got much of their status from their ability to provide water to the populace. “Clean water and political power were inextricably linked – as demonstrated by the fact that the largest reservoirs were built near palaces and temples.” The kings also performed ceremonies to gain the favour of ancestors and the rain god, Chahk. Lisa says a key challenge was to keep standing

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Mayan vessel (c. 700-800 CE) from Guatemala depicting a king sitting on a throne wearing a water lily headdress. Water lilies (Nymphaea ampla) on reservoir surfaces indicated clean water and symbolized Classic Mayan kingship (c. 250-900 CE).

water in reservoirs from becoming stagnant and undrinkable, and for that the Maya likely relied on aquatic plants, many of which still populate Central American wetlands today. These include cattails, sedges, reeds and others. Some of these plants have been identified in sediment cores from Mayan reservoirs. These plants filtered the water, reducing murkiness and absorbing nitrogen and phosphorous. The Maya would have had to dredge every several years, and harvest and replenish aquatic plants. The nutrientladen soils and plants removed from reservoirs could then be used to fertilise urban fields and gardens. The most iconic aquatic plant associated with the ancient Maya is the water lily, Nymphaea ampla, which thrives only in clean water. Its pollen has been found in sediment cores from several Mayan reservoirs. Lisa says water lilies symbolised ‘Classic Maya kingship’. “The kings even donned headdresses adorned with the flowers and are depicted

with water lilies in Mayan art. “Water lilies do not tolerate acidic conditions or too much calcium such as limestone or high concentrations of certain minerals like iron and manganese.” To keep water lilies alive, water managers would have had to line the reservoirs with clay. A layer of sediment would be needed for plants’ roots. In turn, the water lilies and trees and shrubs planted near the reservoirs shaded the water, cooling it and inhibiting the growth of algae. “The Maya generally did not build residences near reservoir edges, so contamination seeping through the karstic terrain would not have been an issue.” The evidence gathered from several southern lowland cities indicates that, as constructed wetlands, Mayan reservoirs supplied potable water to people for more than 1000 years, failing only when the severest droughts took hold in the region between 800 and 900 C.E. Lisa writes that current climate trends will require many of the same approaches the Maya employed, including the use of aquatic plants to improve and maintain water quality naturally. “Constructed wetlands provide many advantages over conventional wastewater treatment systems. They provide an economical, low technology, less expensive and high energy-saving treatment technology.” In addition to providing clean water, constructed wetlands also support aquatic animals and can be a source of nutrients to replenish agricultural soils. “The next step moving forward is to combine our respective expertise and implement the lessons embodied in ancient Mayan reservoirs in conjunction with what is currently known about constructed wetlands.” The paper ‘Ancient Maya Reservoirs, Constructed Wetlands, and Future Water Needs’ is available online: rb.gy/f33kfp

PHOTO COURTESY OF: THE BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS

According to a new paper, ancient Maya reservoirs, which used aquatic plants to filter and clean the water, can serve as archetypes for natural, sustainable water systems to address future water needs. By Diana Yates, life sciences editor, University of Illinois News Bureau.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND UNDERWATER WATER

Discovery of massive undersea water reservoir

could explain mysterious slow earthquakes

The fault is known for producing slowmotion earthquakes, called slow slip events. These can release pent-up tectonic pressure harmlessly over days and weeks. Scientists want to know why they happen more often at some faults than others. Many slow slip earthquakes are thought to be linked to buried water. However, until now there was no direct geologic evidence to suggest such a large water reservoir existed at this particular fault. “We can’t yet see deep enough to know exactly the effect on the fault, but we can see that the amount of water that’s going down here is actually much higher than normal,” said the study’s lead author, Andrew Gase, who did the work as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG). The research was published in the journal Science Advances and is based on seismic cruises and scientific ocean drilling led by UTIG researchers. Andrew, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Western Washington University, is calling for deeper drilling to find where the water ends up so that researchers can determine whether it affects pressure around the fault – an important piece of information that could lead to more precise understanding of large earthquakes, he says. The site where the researchers found the water is part of a vast volcanic province that formed when a plume of lava the size of the United States breached the Earth’s surface in the Pacific Ocean 125 million years ago. The event was one of the Earth’s largest known volcanic eruptions and rumbled on for several million years. Andrew used seismic scans to build a 3D picture of the ancient volcanic plateau in which he saw thick, layered sediments surrounding buried volcanoes. His UTIG collaborators ran lab experiments on drill

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PHOTO COURTESY OF: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS INSTITUTE FOR GEOPHYSICS/ADRIEN ARNULF

Researchers have discovered a sea’s worth of water locked within the sediment and rock of a lost volcanic plateau that’s now deep in the Earth’s crust. Revealed by a 3D seismic image, the water lies two miles under the ocean floor off the coast, where it may be dampening a major earthquake fault that faces the North Island.

A seismic imaging instrument trails behind a research vessel during a survey of New Zealand’s Hikurangi subduction zone. Led by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, the survey found a vast and ancient water reservoir buried miles beneath the seafloor.

core samples of the volcanic rock and found that water made up nearly half of its volume. Normal ocean crust, once it gets to be about seven or 10 million years old should contain much less water, he says. The ocean crust in the seismic scans was 10 times as old, but it had remained much wetter. Andrew speculates that the shallow seas where the eruptions took place eroded some of the volcanoes into a porous, broken-up rock that stored water like an aquifer as it was buried. Over time, the rock and rock fragments transformed into clay, locking in even more water. The finding is important because scientists think that underground water pressure may be a key ingredient in creating conditions that release tectonic stress via slow slip earthquakes. This usually happens when water-rich sediments are buried with the fault, trapping the water underground. However, this particular fault contains little of this typical ocean sediment. Instead, the researchers think the ancient volcanoes and

the transformed rocks – now clays – are carrying large volumes of water down as they’re swallowed by the fault. UTIG director Demian Saffer, a study coauthor and co-chief scientist on the scientific drilling mission, says the findings suggest that other earthquake faults around the globe could be in similar situations. “It’s a really clear illustration of the correlation between fluids and the style of tectonic fault movement – including earthquake behaviour,” he says. “This is something that we’ve hypothesized from lab experiments, and is predicted by some computer simulations, but there are very few clear field experiments to test this at the scale of a tectonic plate.” The research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and science and research agencies in New Zealand, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Read the paper at https://rb.gy/5wzas4 Article provided by University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

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WATER NEW ZEALAND ENVIRONMENT

Study shows dairy farm work is helping improve water quality New scientific data highlights the success of dairy farmer and wider sector efforts to improve surface water quality across five catchments. As part of an Our Land and Water study to analyse historical data, DairyNZ’s water quality science team, in collaboration with AgResearch and Lincoln University, has revisited dairy farms in the Waiokura (South Taranaki), Toenepi (Waikato), Waikakahi (Canterbury), Bog Burn (Southland) and Inchbonnie (West Coast) catchments to assess whether on-farm actions have helped improve water quality over time. The five catchments are dairy farming areas that were part of the 2001-2010 Best Practice Dairy Catchments project, which monitored water quality and environmental work on-farm. Monitoring of water quality and changes to farm practices continued from 2011-2020, as part of national long-term data collection. Researchers found that, over the 20-year monitoring period, including post-extension, 70 percent of in-stream water quality trend directions were improving or showed no change. The median levels of most contaminants in water have also decreased, due to farmers implementing good management practices (GMPs) such as improved effluent management and stock exclusion. The study found in-stream concentrations of phosphorus and suspended sediment decreased the most in response to on-farm work. Overall, the research shows the implementation of GMPs onfarm does improve water quality. DairyNZ general manager sustainable dairy Dr David Burger says the analysis shows the good outcomes achieved by improving management practices on dairy farms. “The mitigation options dairy farmers can take to reduce footprint are widely known, but analysis of the positive impacts of these over time is less available. So it’s good to see this dataset showing extension efforts to help farmers improve their management practices have led to water quality improvement.” Research lead and Our Land and Water National Science Challenge chief scientist Professor Rich McDowell says the findings are positive but also show continued action is needed in key catchments to maintain the momentum. “The data shows that, over the 20-year period, many trends were improving or showed no change. However, we know nitrogen levels increased in many catchments due to development on other dairy farms over the same period. “This means there is still more to do in some areas to lower

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nitrogen and E.coli concentrations. In some catchments, more than good management practice may be required, such as landuse change, to meet water quality expectations.” DairyNZ continues to work with farmers to develop on-farm practices, provide a scientific evidence base to help inform practical and fair regulations and demonstrate the positive results of the actions farmers are taking to improve the health of waterways. Farm environment plans identify actions to improve water quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase biodiversity, and are tailored to individual farms. Currently, more than 70 percent of dairy farms have farm environment plans and 45 percent have greenhouse gas farm plans. By 2025 all farms will have both plans. “The dairy sector is committed to sustainable dairying and farming within environmental limits,” David says. “Through the Dairy Tomorrow Strategy and other work, DairyNZ, dairy companies, sector partners and research organisations are reinforcing the value of GMPs and supporting farmers as they continue to improve their systems to achieve environmental outcomes.” The full research findings have been published online, read the paper here: https://rb.gy/0ls9vk Article provided by DairyNZ

WATER NEW ZEALAND DRINKING WATER

Moves to show Christchurch’s water supply complies with rules Christchurch City Council is underway with an extensive testing programme to demonstrate most of the city’s water supply can comply with drinking water rules and standards without a protozoa barrier. Following the outbreak of cryptosporidium in Queenstown caused by water contaminated with protozoa, Government water regulator Taumata Arowai wrote to the Council outlining its expectation that protozoa treatment barriers are put in place for water supplies that draw from bores with a depth less than 30 metres. It set deadlines of 30 June next year for plans to be in place, and 31 December 2025 for barriers to be installed and operating. However, the Council expects to be able to demonstrate Class 1 status for most of the city’s water supply, which means it will comply without having to install protozoa treatment barriers. Class 1 status can be achieved when the water source is drawn from deeper than 30 metres, the well heads meet the requirements to be considered a sanitary bore, and an intensive sampling programme is completed. “I want to reassure residents that

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while our water supply currently is noncompliant with the rules, the water is very much safe to drink,” Council head of three waters Brent Smith says. “Christchurch city’s water supply is unique due to the deep aquifers we draw from. Based on extensive studies there is evidence to show that the risk of protozoa contamination is very low. “We’re already in the process of establishing a programme of work to achieve compliance. This includes the current intensive testing programme to meet the Class 1 criteria. This programme is already 42 percent complete and has so far achieved good results. “The first batch of monitoring will be complete at the end of April 2024 and the last groups will be complete in December 2025.” Out of our 148 registered sources, only 11 cannot be considered for Class 1 status as the wells are too shallow or remain in underground chambers. Projects to address the 11 Christchurch

sources that can’t be considered for Class 1 are planned or underway. These include projects underway to deepen shallow wells at Montreal and Woolston pump stations; five water sources in the Mairehau, Burwood and Averill pump stations that can be permanently taken out of service once rezoning is complete; two sources at Kerrs pump station that will be replaced as part of a planned treatment plant replacement programme; and two sources at Tanner pump station that need a protozoa treatment barrier (UV) installed. In addition to the 11 Christchurch projects, the Wainui treatment plant also needs a protozoa treatment barrier (UV) installed. Council staff are working on plans for the Wainui and Tanner upgrades, which need to be prioritised to be complete by the December 2025 deadline. These will be included in the Long Term Plan 202434, which will be considered by the elected Council next year.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND WASTEWATER

Mitigating nitrous oxide emissions from wastewater treatment systems Wastewater utilities are aiming to reduce their carbon footprint. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) significantly contribute to the footprint. However, reducing the N2O emissions poses several challenges. In this article, Naresh Singhal, professor, and Bharat Manna, research fellow, in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Auckland, outline their study, recently funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE), to develop solutions to these problems. N2O is a potent greenhouse gas emitted by WWTPs during sewage treatment. N2O has a global warming potential of 273 times that of CO2 for a 100-year timescale, causing even minor emissions to leave a significantly oversized carbon footprint. Under the Zero Carbon Act and Carbon Neutral Government Programme, local governments have set targets to achieve carbon neutrality by lowering their carbon footprint. As only a few WWTPs here have started monitoring their N2O emissions, water utilities primarily base their carbon inventory estimates on the default N2O emission factors released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC 2019 refinement increased the default N2O emission factor 32-fold over the 2006 guidance, raising the estimated New Zealand-wide WWTPs N2O emissions from 14 t-N2O/ year to 304 t-N2O/year and making the contribution of WWTPs process emissions to be 37-50 percent of the carbon footprint for some councils. Monitoring WWTPs N2O emissions to get accurate emissions data requires costly equipment and technical expertise that could be beyond the capabilities of small local councils. N2O emissions correlate with nitrogen removal efficiency in conventional biological treatment processes, creating an additional challenge for WWTPs; improved nitrogen removal could increase N2O emissions. A common strategy for minimising WWTP N2O emissions involves slowing the N2O-producing nitrification and denitrification processes. However, doing so also lowers the nitrogen removal efficiency. Upgrading the ~193 poorly performing WWTPs with conventional activated sludge systems to meet the nitrogen levels in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management (NPS-FM) could lead to higher WWTP N2O emissions. Resolving this conflict between lower N2O emissions and higher nitrogen removal is challenging. Advanced technologies that lower N2O emissions without sacrificing nitrogen removal, such as anammox, remain untested in New Zealand, and their large-scale implementation could be technically risky. To address the above challenges, we are undertaking the Innovative Wastewater Treatment Intensification for Stringent Nitrogen and N2O Control study, funded by MBIE as a Smart Ideas project. We propose (a) developing a cost-effective solution for lowering N2O emissions while increasing nitrogen removal, and (b) creating a metagenomics-based tool for accurately estimating N2O emissions during wastewater treatment. N2O emissions result from excessive production relative to its destruction. Past research focuses on N2O production reactions due to the absence of criteria for regulating N2O destruction. We propose a rationale for the biological conversion of N2O to N2, enabling us to regulate N2O destruction. Our study aims to lower N2O emissions by manipulating the environmental conditions that energise the N2O reductase enzyme to

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Figure 1. Metagenomics analysis of two wastewater samples performed in triplicate for two different bioreactor operational modes shows differences in the (a) abundance of different genes (green colour indicates a higher gene abundance while red lower abundance) and (b) rates of N2O destruction.

destroy N2O rapidly. In Figure 1, we illustrate the effect of different sewage treatment modes. Relative to treatment Mode 1, Mode 2 increases the nitrification and denitrification genes, causing faster nitrogen removal and higher N2O production (see Figure 1 (a)). However, Mode 2 also increases N2O destruction by 240 percent over Mode 1 (Figure 1(b)), lowering the emissions of N2O from the bioreactor (N2O emissions data not shown in the figure). We will develop our solutions using wastewater samples collected at six WWTPs, selected to represent the treatment processes commonly used here. We will use the Wairoa WWTP to co-develop wastewater treatment approaches with mana whenua and employ metagenomics to perform a bioassessment of the impacts WWTP discharges have on the Wairoa River. Our team comprises researchers from the University of Auckland, BECA consultants, NEWhub Water Corporation, Watercare, Jaduram Consultants, WaterOutlook, Water New Zealand, and the United Nations Environment Program’s Global Wastewater Initiative group. Kaumātua Richard Niania facilitates citizen science engagement with the Wairoa community. This two-year study commenced in October 2023. We welcome inquiries or collaboration opportunities with other WWTPs and organisations in our project. If interested, please get in touch with us at n.singhal@auckland.ac.nz. Chris Thurston, vice chair of the Water New Zealand Climate Change Group, says Water New Zealand welcomes this funding and will actively support the project to help further our knowledge and action in reducing emissions. Methane and nitrous oxide are potent greenhouse gasses that require a much better understanding and, whilst the focus in this country has largely been driven by agriculture, the water sector is ready to take this on, as these greenhouse gases are a significant part of wastewater treatment.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND WETLANDS

Joint venture to restore Waihī Estuary Whānau of Ngāti Whakahemo at Pukehina marae are undertaking a kaupapa Māori project to understand the needs of the Waihī estuary. Using funding from Our Land and Water, the project extends the organisation’s Healthy Estuaries research programme, a partnership with the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge. The overarching programme responds to an unintended gap created through the separation of land- and seabased issues. It aims to assess cumulative impacts of land use and freshwater contaminants on estuarine environments and to identify the contaminant thresholds required to restore their ecological function. The programme includes three case study estuaries. Tāwharautia te Wahapū o Waihī was developed to explore a different approach in one of those case studies. Led by Professor Kura Paul-Burke (University of

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Waikato), whānau of Ngāti Whakahemo sought to understand the history of the estuary and its experiences over time through kōrero tuku iho (oral histories and traditions), and through developing closer relationships with the estuary via monitoring and observation. This enabled Ngāti Whakahemo to help the estuary have its own voice, and a means to determine what it needs to be well again. The Waihī estuary is severely degraded with permanent health warnings for collection of shellfish and declining populations of shellfish, seagrass meadows, bird species, and fish species. Nana (seagrass), one of the most important health indicators of the estuary, has reduced from 80 hectares in 1943 to less than one hectare today.

With a relatively small total catchment area (approximately 35,000 hectares) the ability to affect change through collective action is high. However, there are serious challenges to overcome. At the outset of the project, the four main tributaries emptying into the estuary were straightened canals., with no buffers or contaminant filtration mechanisms. The project also initiated collaborative fieldwork by Ngāti Whakahemo with NIWA and the University of Waikato, resulting in rapid habitat assessment maps and temperature loggers to better understand the impact of climate change on the estuary and mahinga kai. A key finding of the research was the importance of mātauranga Māori and marine science working together to

PHOTOS COURTESY OF: BAY OF PLENTY REGIONAL COUNCIL.

provide evidence-based information on the current state of the nana (seagrass), tuangi (cockles) and tōrea (oyster catcher birds) in the estuary. With increased capacity to understand the estuary, Ngāti Whakahemo gained confidence to directly engage others on opportunities to support restoration action. This led to the collectivisation of Ngāti Whakahemo with four other iwi partners that also border the estuary (Ngāti Whakaue ki Maketū, Ngāti Pikiao, Ngāti Mākino, and Tapuika), marking the first time that all five iwi have banded together to advance the cause of the estuary. The iwi collective, with support from Bay of Plenty Regional Council, were successful in securing funding from the Ministry for the Environment’s Freshwater Improvement Fund for a four-year restoration programme, Te Wahapū o Waihī. Together, the iwi collective and Bay of

Plenty Regional Council have purchased 30 hectares of land adjacent to the estuary to re-establish a wetland/saltmarsh, providing much-needed filtration between the estuary and the catchment canals. The research team is considering an invitation to work with The Nature Conservancy and Terra Carbon to establish carbon monitoring once it is constructed. The new wetland will be developed between the Pongakawa River and Pukehina Canal, on the margins of the Waihī Estuary. It will play a critical role in helping to treat agricultural drainage water from the adjacent dairy farms, to help improve the estuary’s health; improve indigenous wetland habitat and biodiversity. Coastal wetlands can also store significant amounts of carbon, known as Blue Carbon. Pim De Monchy, Bay of Plenty Regional Council coastal catchments manager, says

Opposite and above: Waihī Estuary at Pukehina, June 2023.

the purchase is one of several ambitious programmes of work that Council is undertaking in collaboration with Te Wahapū o Waihī. “We value the deep cultural connection tangata whenua have to the land, and recognise the strength that their knowledge holds in environmental conservation and restoration. “Wetlands play a crucial role in water filtration, flood prevention and biodiversity conservation, making this restoration project an important step towards bringing life back to the estuary.” He also acknowledged the key role of neighbouring farmers in making this deal possible, and the Ministry for the Environment as a co-funder of the land acquisition.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND WETLANDS

The Waihī Estuary has been identified as one of the most degraded in the country, due to decades of wetland drainage, river channelisation, land use change and contaminated runoff throughout the 35,000-hectare catchment. To return the estuary to a moderate state of ecological health, significant change is required. Kura Paul-Burke, Te Wahapū o Waihī project lead, says, “We compare the health of the estuary with the health of our people and unfortunately, the Waihī estuary is in an alarming state. “As kaitiaki, it’s our responsibility to look after our taiao. If we want the estuary to be the abundant mahinga kai, or food basket, it once was, action is needed now.” Te Taru White, Bay of Plenty regional councillor and Independent chair of Te Wahapū o Waihī, has been involved in the project from the beginning. “It is fitting that as Matariki rises, and we welcome the new year full of possibilities, that we embark on this new joint venture full of aspiration for the future of the Waihī Estuary,” he said at a karakia onsite held in

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late June to acknowledge the project. “Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua – long after we move on, the land will remain. “Te Wahapū o Waihī is a collective of five iwi from across the Waihī Estuary catchment area. This strong relationship further supports the work that will need to be done beyond this wetland project.” To achieve this unique project, 109 hectares of land was initially purchased on Cutwater Road, Pukehina, with 79 hectares on sold to a neighbouring farm. The remaining 30 hectares will be returned to coastal wetland.

Flooded lowlands in the Waihī Estuary catchment after Cyclone Debbie, April 2017.

Te Wahapū o Waihī will also work with local farmers and provide support to assist with Farm Environment Plans. Local community groups, regional and central agencies have also indicated interest in engaging with the kaupapa. This project has been funded 50 percent by the regional council and 50 percent from Te Wahapū o Waihī through the Ministry for the Environment’s Freshwater Improvement Fund. Content provided by Our Land and Water and Bay of Plenty Regional Council.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND STORMWATER

A tale of two streams Stu Farrant conducts a non-scientific study on two streams to illustrate the damage caused by uncontrolled stormwater runoff.

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While almost all councils have rules and guidance on the detention of stormwater to mitigate peak flow rates, this is often misconstrued to also provide ecological benefits. In reality, the detention and throttled release of stormwater will, in most instances, contribute to worsening ecological outcomes due to the extended duration of elevated flow rates in moderate to large events and the lack of any form of control to the small events. In a natural catchment, these small events are assimilated by vegetation and shallow soils and either evapotranspired back into the atmosphere or infiltrated to ground. Thus, detention to meet peak flow rates can provide useful flood protection for downstream properties but should not be considered as an environmental measure. The general reluctance to understand the complexity of frequent flow hydrology, and the adverse impacts this is having on indigenous biodiversity, is both hard to fathom and out of sync with national and international guidelines, which have highlighted stormwater volumes as an issue but not translated this to policy to date, with the exception of a few councils such as Auckland and Waikato. The quantum of ‘initial losses’ varies across seasons, locations and bio-physical conditions, but the mean annual volume of stormwater that is intercepted and evapotranspired back into the atmosphere is significant. Estimates vary from 20 percent to over 50 percent, which largely comprise rainfall in small frequent events that in natural catchments generate minimal surface flow and only moderate recharge of baseflows. Admittedly, this variability does make it difficult to be definitive on the amount of retention needed to protect stream health but we must not shy away from this complexity. Rather we must collectively work towards meaningful positive outcomes through the capture and reuse of rainwater/stormwater, the use of green roofs and infiltration where ground conditions allow. To riff on the terminology that seems to be resonating at the moment, we need to ensure development is genuinely ‘spongy’, while avoiding slowly wringing out the sponge. In an attempt to visually illustrate the impact of uncontrolled stormwater runoff, I selected two suitably paired catchments in Wellington for a non-scientific observational experiment on a rainy Saturday in September. With almost identical contributing catchment areas (2.5 hectares), elevation differences, aspect and geology, the only real discernible difference was that one catchment was undeveloped (apart from a small area of road at the very upper boundary) and the other comprised typical low density housing stock and local roads. STREAM 1 Top left: An intermittent stream bed, takes runoff from a largely undeveloped catchment. Far left: The stream in the undeveloped catchment after four days of steady rain. Left: The stream has a stable soft bottomed intermittent streambed which leads to a perennial stream alive with fish.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND STORMWATER

With an eye on the rain radar, I clambered up the deeply incised and actively eroding streambed of the developed stream to the point where the two small stormwater pipes discharged to the stream. Arriving to only a tiny trickle dribbling out of the pipes, after less than 5mm of total rainfall, both pipes were pulsing out a steady plume of smelly, warm stormwater that plunged into the heavily eroded gully below. A few photos later, I dashed to the undeveloped site (while the rain continued falling) to observe the intermittent stream bed, undisturbed with the forest around benefiting from the glorious rainfall. Downstream of the site, the stable soft bottomed intermittent streambed transitions to a perennial stream with an

abundance of thriving banded kōkopu in the only permanent pools in the entire catchment before the stream disappears into a piped connection to the coast. These fish know the importance of the intermittent headwaters to sustain a food store of invertebrates, organic matter and decomposing woody debris. Meanwhile, back at the developed stream, the constant disturbance in even small events creates an almost complete lack of habitat, unstable stream banks, and a constant source of sediments to flush downstream. This instability is then amplified in the large infrequent storms, but it is the underlying impacts of the change in frequent flow hydrology which is the catalyst for the near total collapse of stream health. While just observational, the differences were glaringly obvious. The lack of management of stormwater volumes was having a devastating impact in even a low density developed catchment making any vision of Te Mana o Te Wai nothing but a pipe dream (nice pun, eh?). If we are serious about the need to protect and restore our precious urban waterways, it is time to educate practitioners, clients, and planners on the fundamental importance of runoff volume in healthy catchments rather than peak flow rates. My photos say it all. Postscript: I visited the same undeveloped stream four days later after 30mm of solid rainfall, and the fish are still happy!

STREAM 2 Main image: The stream with its stormwater pipe spewing stormwater from a residental catchment. Insert: The eroded gully of this stream.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND SEDIMENT

Unravelling Gabrielle’s impacts on marine life NIWA is studying the ocean off Tairāwhiti and Hawke’s Bay to see how Cyclone Gabrielle has impacted the health of fisheries habitats and seabed ecosystems. Cyclones can cause huge changes to the ocean environment through the influx of silt from the land via rivers, increased ocean mixing, and re-suspension of sediments from the seafloor. Project leader Dr Daniel Leduc says the cyclone caused considerable damage to land and property, but effects on the ocean are harder to gauge. “One of the most shocking sights from Cyclone Gabrielle was those huge sediment deposits that buried houses to their rooftops. The home of our marine life is also impacted, only it is harder to map and is constantly moved around by water currents, waves, and tides. “Our job is to assess where the impacts have been felt and to what extent, particularly in vulnerable habitats and places where species like flounder and gurnard live close to the seafloor.” A key output of this work is to develop models which will help determine where this sediment has ended up. This involves analysis of sediment using tools like satellite imagery, but also through several sea voyages throughout the year to collect samples of the sediment, obtain video footage of the seafloor, and map it using soundwaves. In April, NIWA completed 13 days of multibeam sonar mapping of the seafloor to look for cyclone-induced sediment deposits, which they compared with previous mapping. This was followed by a 19-day voyage in June where they captured additional video footage and took samples through sediment coring. Daniel says the crew observed encouraging signs of life in the seafloor sediment cores, such as sand dollars, hermit crabs, juvenile shellfish, and sea cucumbers. “These are important parts of the food

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A lot of wood but little biology was found during research trawls undertaken in June on the Wairoa Hard.

web, and their presence could either mean that they were able to survive the increased sediment or that the sediment did not collect in these areas.” Dr Joshu Mountjoy, a NIWA marine geologist who specialises in seafloor mapping, says areas of the seafloor have been affected differently with many areas needing further investigation. “The Wairoa Hard, which hosts an important nursery for juvenile fish, showed no large-scale sediment build-up when we mapped the area in April,” he says. “However, sediment cores taken in June had high mud contents that could be cyclone related. In addition, when the team conducted research trawls in June, they returned little biology, but lots of wood debris.” Fisheries New Zealand commissioned NIWA to conduct this research and will

use the information to help understand implications of the Cyclone on local fisheries. Daniel says that how the ecosystem may have been impacted is unclear. “The water has been too murky to get any good images of the seafloor, but this area will be followed up again this year to gain more insights. Director Science & Information Simon Lawrence says the research provides a baseline to help inform how we manage these fisheries: “It is important to understand what is happening beneath the water now so that we can make good decisions about it for the future.” While the NIWA team analyse these initial findings, a third voyage was planned for October to see how things have progressed. Article provided by NIWA

CONTENTS WATER NEW ZEALAND

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND DRINKING WATER

Upper Nihotupu Dam back in business after repairs to flood-damaged watermain The 100-year-old Upper Nihotupu Dam is again supplying water to Aucklanders after its raw watermain suffered damage during the Anniversary Weekend storm. The Upper Nihotupu Raw Watermain that carries dam water to the Huia Water Treatment Plant was damaged by landslips in multiple places after the storm. Watercare’s head of production Peter Rogers is thrilled to have the dam back in service. “Upper Nihotupu Dam officially turned 100 in April, but because of the storm damage to the raw watermain, we weren’t able to abstract water from the dam for six months. There’s been a huge amount of work from our team and contractors to repair the damage. “The weather certainly complicated matters, as did the terrain. Most of the materials and equipment, including small excavators, had to be flown in by helicopter. One slip around Quinn’s Bridge took out a couple of the raw watermain supports so, before we could fill the pipeline with water, we had to reinstate those and repair the bridge itself.” Once the repairs were complete, the team slowly began

recharging the raw watermain by running a low flow of water through it and checking it was operating as it should be. Then over the following few days, they began increasing the water flow and keeping a close eye on it. Everything went smoothly so they were able to switch it back to run on auto at its normal capacity on August 18. It’s great to have the dam back in service again, well before the summer months when water consumption rises significantly. On average it supplies about 22 million litres of water each day, so it does play a big role in Auckland’s water supply scheme. “From an operational perspective, this dam provides a really important water source for Auckland. It’s gravity fed so we don’t have to rely on pumping, which makes it one of our cheaper and more sustainable water sources.” Upper Nihotupu Dam is Auckland’s highest dam. It is one of 12 dams that supply water to Auckland. Article provided by Watercare

Upper Nihotupu Dam

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WATER NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY

Cyclone Gabrielle landslide response and recovery

Between 12 and 16 February 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle triggered at least 140,000 landslides across the North Island damaging houses, power lines, bridges, roads, and creating dams across channels, and sadly, resulting in the death of five people. This is potentially the largest mapped landslide-triggering event on record in the country. GNS Science was tasked with identifying, with a good level of spatial accuracy, where rainfall-induced landslides and their damaging impacts were likely to occur, did occur and might occur in the future. GNS engineering geologists, Drs Chris Massey and Kerry Leith, are leading this work, which is being delivered in partnership with NEMA, Manaaki Whenua, University of Canterbury, and the University of Auckland.

About the project

To identify and map the large number of landslides triggered by Cyclone Gabrielle, the project team developed new mapping and modelling approaches to provide stakeholders with landslide intensity information in a timely manner and at a sufficient level of spatial and positional accuracy to be useful. This is one of the largest international landslide datasets directly related to a single storm event. This new dataset enables landslide occurrence to be linked to the rain that triggered them, allowing hindcasting of the magnitude of the impacts. Once the landslide impact models are retrained on this new

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dataset, they will be used to forecast the potential impacts more accurately for potential future landslide-triggering events. Further, because the models are linked to rain amounts, the influence of climate change on rainfall can also be integrated into the forecasts. The project comprises four phases: 1. Immediate response: Help stakeholders find where potential landslides may have occurred from the event that could pose a risk to life and lifeline infrastructure. 2. Mapping: Develop a systematic approach to the mapping of landslides, balanced against the need for timely information. 3. Case studies: Study of a specific landslide dam and two slowmoving landslides posing a risk to urban areas. 4. Landslide hazard forecast modelling: Update and improve landslide susceptibility and rainfall-induced landslide forecast and impact models.

Immediate response

Ahead of Cyclone Gabrielle’s landfall, the GNS landslides team forecasted where rainfall-induced landslides were most likely to occur using soil moisture levels and NIWA’s maximum 24-hour

Scientists mapping heavily impacted farmland in Hawke's Bay GNS Science.

rain forecasts projected over a 48-hour period as inputs for the landslide susceptibility models. The landslide forecasts were overlaid on population and infrastructure maps to create impact forecasts and identify where the greatest risk to life and lifeline infrastructure was likely to be. This critical information was shared with emergency managers, councils, and national infrastructure network providers to support them to direct their resources where they were likely to be needed most. Once Gabrielle made landfall, the forecasts were continually updated with real-time rainfall data to support emergency managers with time critical data as the cyclone event unfolded. Immediately following Cyclone Gabrielle, the team set out to rapidly identify where landslides and damage had occurred. Reports from media, social media, civil defence, councils, iwi, and infrastructure operators provided a good indication of landslide locations, particularly those among populations. From this intel, Northland, Auckland, Waikato, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, and Tararua districts were identified as the most heavily impacted regions to further survey. Five GNS landslide expert teams were assembled to undertake aerial reconnaissance of this 50,000 square kilometre area. Nearly 17,000 photos of landslides annotated with observations were taken from the air and georeferenced for later use. These were provided to end users at the

end of each aerial mission. The expert teams also swept the area for hidden hazards that may pose a future risk, including landslide dams and failing slopes threatening property and roads in urban areas. The images, intel and landslide and impact forecasts updated with current rainfall data were shared daily with stakeholders using a custom mobile app so they could respond as needed to prevent further damage and loss of life from landslide hazards.

Mapping

The immense number of landslides, the large area covered, the wide range of geology, climate, land cover and physiology and the speed with which an inventory was needed, required evolved and innovated methods to capture the landslides and their impacts. A multi-agency team with multi-expertise was essential. At GNS more than 25 staff, ranging from engineering geologists, geospatial analysts, geologic mappers, programmers and social scientists, were assigned to the team. GNS partnered with NEMA, Manaaki Whenua, University of Canterbury, and the University of Auckland to develop a systematic workflow and methodology to create a spatially accurate landslide inventory that could be simultaneously disseminated and useful to end-users on the ground. Fifteen post-graduate students and two supervisors were included in the team and added incredible value as they were able to work for several months full-time whilst gaining significant landslide mapping and GIS skills.

Taking care of the 3 Waters now and for generations to come

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

PHOTO COURTESY OF: DOUGAL TOWNSEND

WATER NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY

Mangahauini Landslide Dam at Tokomaru Bay.

Mapping largely took place in QGIS and ArcMap, which was uploaded to an ArcGIS online web map multiple times a week for stakeholders to access the data quickly. The 50,000 square kilometres of affected area was divided into grid cells of five kilometres by 2.5 kilometres, which were ranked based on stakeholder priority. Mapping was based on pre- and post-satellite optical and radar imagery streamed by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). Stakeholders helped to inform which areas should be mapped as a priority, emphasising the regions where people and lifeline infrastructure were most exposed to landslide hazards. One of the most crucial decisions made was how to map each landslide. The goal was to provide as much detail and data as possible, while also being able to map at least all the top priority grid cells within the given timeframe and budget. There was debate on whether to use points on a map, oriented polylines or polygons, with/without attributes. Points are quick to map but don’t provide any additional data other than the landslide’s location; polygons provide the most accurate information but take a significant amount of time to map. Using oriented polylines with attributes meant that at least the minimum required high-priority grid cells could be mapped, but still capture important and useful data in a manageable and cost-effective timeframe. With oriented polylines, the first point of the line represents the centre of the landslide source and the polyline represents the centreline of the debris trail, providing some detail on the travel distance of the landslide and its direction. The attributes were aligned with the European and international norms to ensure consistency with existing landslide catalogues.

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These include: • Type of landslide as defined by its movement down a slope, e.g., fall, flow, slide; • Material type, e.g., rock, soil, artificial fill; • End type, i.e., how clear the end point is from its starting point; • Accumulation of a debris trail; • Level of urgency for a landslide hazard to be further assessed. In addition to polylines, specific symbology for the landslide attributes was used to assist users in capturing the essential characteristics of each landslide at a glance, while also helping to build a rich dataset needed for building the forecast models. All this information improves understanding of the mechanisms that trigger a rainfall-induced landslide, as well as how it moves down a slope (e.g., momentum and velocity). For example, improved runout modelling can now be performed to track the path and amount of sediment from debris trails that might damage the environment, including within denser ground cover that cannot be seen from aerial imaging.

Case studies

The GNS landslides team is examining three sites identified as potential hazards to people and infrastructure. A partial breach of an old landslide that blocks the Mangahauini River three kilometres upstream from Tokomaru Bay occurred sometime during Cyclone Gabrielle. Field-based mapping and LiDAR surveys (laser technology used to examine the earth’s surface) using drones are being undertaken at the Tokomaru landslide dam at Tokomaru Bay. Investigations are

underway to assess its potential impact on downstream areas in the event the landslide dam reforms and breaches in the future. Two slow-moving landslides in Piha and Waiatarua are being monitored with GNSS (global navigation satellite system networks) movement and rainfall monitoring equipment. These landslides are affecting both residential property and roads. Advice on the likelihood and impacts of these hazards will be provided to Gisborne and Auckland councils. Quality controls were implemented at several points in the process including independent verification checks by the GNS team and a final quality assurance by two experienced Manaaki Whenua mappers. End users could access both reviewed and unreviewed layers of data on an online interactive map stored on the GNS cloud. The unreviewed ‘raw’ landslide maps were shared instantly to provide quick data for emergency response. Users could also add valuable information from their own on-ground experiences to further enrich the information being shared.

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Stormwater management solutions.

The current landslide models are built on years of scientific research. While the models performed reasonably well to forecast the most likely affected areas ahead of Cyclone Gabrielle’s arrival, with the addition of over 140,000 landslides there is now a richer dataset to test and retrain current models to better forecast future events. As mapping continues, the team are concurrently testing how well the modelled forecasts trained on the pre-Gabrielle landslide inventory perform against the actual landslides triggered by Cyclone Gabrielle that have been mapped. Using automated mapping of landslides generated by external organisations – based on remotely-sensed satellite imagery – to compare against the human-based mapping, around 30 percent of the mapped source areas from the automated mapping were found to be missed, with around 65 percent of those being the size of a house or smaller. In some cases, there were mapped landslides that were either bare ground or some other feature unrelated to landslides. This supports the decision to have humans map the landslides for this event to better ensure they were fully captured, accurately. Retraining the landslide forecast models on the pre-existing landslide inventory, plus the input of new human-mapped data from Cyclone Gabrielle tagged with multiple attributes, means more accurate predictions can be made of where landslides might occur, as well as their characteristics and potential impacts down slope. Using a risk analysis tool called RiskScape, this platform allows different hazard datasets to be used with exposure datasets and vulnerability functions to estimate the risks – including the probability of fatality, financial loss or impacts on infrastructure. This degree of information, teamed with high intensity rainfall models provided by partner organisations, could prove critical to the preparation of frontline services, transport networks and people ahead of the next storm event.

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Landslide hazard forecast modelling

WATER NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY

Population and infrastructure maps with estimated number of landslides.

One of the maps produced by the team to represent landslides.

Next steps

The mapping work continues with the aim of completion toward the end of the year and public publication when it is available. For anyone who would like access to the data now, please email j.bidmead@gns.cri.nz. There are also more than 1500 homes impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle landslides that require further risk analysis. The retrained models are now being used to help councils and others to undertake that work. Once the landslide susceptibility models have been refined, risk analyses will be expanded to support long-term planning

that can greatly reduce New Zealand’s exposure to economic, infrastructure and human losses from both earthquake and raininduced landslides. These include future land zoning, community safety plans, rail and road planning and many other activities that underpin where and how people live. The research programme will build on the lessons learned from Cyclone Gabrielle to fill gaps that will go even further to improve the landslide forecast models. These include the role of slope-channel coupling, landcover and soil moisture on landslide triggering and how climate change projections can be incorporated into landslide forecasts.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND CASE STUDY

Naturalised E.coli still indicate potential health risk from faecal pathogens Regional authorities are regularly questioned by community members and industry representatives about E. coli as an indicator of faecal contamination, where the E. coli is considered ‘naturalised’ in the aquatic environment rather than due to recent faecal contamination. There are two types of naturalised Escherichia, both detected as E. coli by standard methods of water quality monitoring: E. coli from aged faecal pollution, and environmental Escherichia that do not belong to the E. coli species. New molecular evidence has demonstrated that water containing naturalised E. coli from aged faecal sources can also contain faecal pathogens. Therefore E. coli monitoring remains an important sentinel of faecal contamination. This evidence will help regional water managers support community members to accept the potential health risk from aged sources of faecal contamination. This finding is a significant contribution to the evidence base that ensures water quality standards for swimmability are protective of human health. Where faecal contamination is identified as the source of E. coli, mitigation actions can be targeted to improve water quality. The evidence comes from a research partnership between the Faecal Source Tracking project – led by Dr Adrian Cookson (AgResearch senior scientist) – and ESR, using water samples collected as part of the Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment. Research was conducted in three stages, each building on earlier work. Meg Devane, senior scientist at ESR, has been a member of all research teams and the connected MfE research. The initial faecal source tracking research applied DNA sequencing to water

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Health warning notices were placed in public areas downstream.

samples collected in Waikato and Tararua. This identified 23 strains of naturalised Escherichia that represent a distinct evolutionary population. The strains were not associated with risk to human health. The research team was later granted ‘impact extension’ funding to work with ESR to examine 42 watersamples from chronically polluted water bodies, collected by MfE’s Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment pilot study. This stage of research highlighted the potential health risk from aged faecal contamination. Water samples containing E. coli from aged faecal sources are often dominated by E. coli subtypes B1 and B2, whereas fresh sources contain multiple subtypes (A–G). This research detected pathogens in samples that contained predominantly B1 and B2 sub-types. In addition, environmental Escherchia that do not belong to the E. coli species were identified infrequently in the 42 water samples. Routine monitoring methods do not differentiate the two types of naturalised Escherichia. This stage of research also identified traits that may be used to rapidly distinguish environmental Escherichia from E. coli associated with faecal contamination.

Evidence from the 42-sample study was presented in September 2021 to the regional council special interest group for Surface Water Integrated Management (SWIM), made up of freshwater scientists and regional council experts from around the country, and in November 2022 to water managers via the NZ Freshwater Sciences Society. SWIM executive member Dr Elaine Moriarty, science collaboration lead at ECan, said: “The advances in determining the health risk attached to a variety of E. coli types in water is fundamental to how regional councils manage our waterways. This knowledge allows us to work with our communities and share the health risk from all faecal sources. This research is a cornerstone of our knowledge and vital that it is continued.” In 2022, Our Land and Water provided funding for further research into Escherichia delineation and pathogen detection with researchers at ESR. An additional 300 water samples collected for Stage III of the MfE Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment are now being analysed using high-resolution molecular methods. Samples are from a broader spectrum of water bodies, including sites where contamination is absent or intermittent. This work will extend understanding of the association of E. coli from aged faecal sources with pathogens. It will provide additional evidence to evaluate the initial finding that low concentrations of environmental Escherichia identified in chronically polluted water bodies are not confounding routine water quality monitoring. Guidance will be provided to all regional water managers, who will disseminate advice to community members and industry representatives.

PHOTO COURTESY OF: ZIZI SPARKS.

New evidence shows E.coli monitoring is vital in detecting faecal contamination even in water containing naturalised E. coli.

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WATER NEW ZEALAND YOUNG SCIENTIST

Months in the mud leads to science fair success A Year 13 student from Saint Kentigern College scooped top prizes at the 2023 NIWA South and East Auckland Science Fair for her project ‘Crab-a-dabra!’. Ivy Wang spent the last few months getting muddy as her project investigated Aotearoa New Zealand tunnelling mud crab abundance and distribution in mangrove areas. Recognising that this small species has a great impact on ecosystem health, Ivy’s research explored the influence of sediment and pneumatophore properties of mangroves on crab size and distribution in the Tāmaki estuary. “I wanted to have a better understanding of organism distribution in mangrove ecosystems, which may perhaps lead to better management of our estuaries. I hope my project can support estuarine management and improve ecosystem conditions in the future,” says Ivy. Ivy won First Place in the Year 11-13 Open Category, Best Use of Statistics Award, Best Innovation, Invention or Investigation by a Year 13, and the Premier Award for Best Exhibit of the Fair. Her project did not come without its challenges – involving extensive fieldwork, laboratory analysis and a long research and editing process. “Every challenge that came up was a highlight! Reading countless papers, conducting tedious fieldwork, editing and typesetting. Because of them, I learnt research skills within academia and am constantly expanding my understanding, questioning my statements and achieving higher accuracy. “This fair fundamentally affirmed my aspiration to step into research in the future.” Ivy credits one of AUT’s professors for her success. A marine science enthusiast, Ivy contacted Professor of Marine Ecology and Aquaculture Andrea Alfaro to seek guidance on a science project. Andrea, seeing Ivy’s passion for research, was more than happy to help. “When Ivy contacted me, it was clear that she was a highly motivated student with a keen interest in learning to conduct research in a mangrove environment. It is very easy for me to say yes when I see students with such a drive and hunger for knowledge,” says Andrea. Over the next few months Andrea met with Ivy online to help her design her project, discuss the background information and the sampling protocol. Ivy was interested in researching the ecology of mangrove ecosystems, so Andrea suggested that she look at the abundance and size distribution of the mud crab within mangrove and pneumatophore habitats. “Pneumatophores are root structures that grow out from the water surface to facilitate aeration. My hypothesis, based on past studies,

This is a great example of the fabulous work that happens in science fairs across the country by enthusiastic budding water professionals. Water New Zealand is looking for partners to support the nationwide science fair programme. Email Water New Zealand Training Manager, Belinda.Cridge@Waternz.org.nz, if you or your organisation would like to help.

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Ivy and her friend Andrea doing fieldwork in the mangroves, collecting sediment samples and measuring crabs.

was that as pneumatophore zones provide abundant food sources and muddier, softer sediment for burrowing, it is likely to attract more crabs compared to mangrove zones,” says Ivy. Ivy undertook her field work at Tahuna Torea Nature Reserve, accompanied by Andrea and a friend. They collected sediment samples, which were sieved on site and counted and measured the crabs in these samples. Ivy also looked at sediment grain size and abundance of underground mangrove roots to characterise the habitats and interpret the crab distribution within the ecosystem. Her findings confirmed her hypotheses: “More crabs and larger crabs were present in the pneumatophore habitat. This finding helps us understand the distribution of organisms in mangrove ecosystems, which may perhaps lead to better management of our estuaries,” she says. Andrea says it was a delight to work with Ivy and she has a bright future ahead of her: “Ivy has an innate ability to grasp complex concepts and critically analyse data. She is also hard working and perseverant, so I was not surprised that she was awarded the top science prizes. “I look forward to hearing how her academic career develops since she is already a capable young scientist.” Auckland Science Fair coordinator and NIWA urban aquatic scientist Annette Semadeni-Davis was impressed by the quality and level of engagement of the students involved. “I have been coordinating science fairs in Auckland for over 10 years now and it always amazes me how enthusiastic and creative the kids can be and how responsive they are to the issues of the day, from testing whether light-proof milk bottles really do keep milk fresher a few years ago to numerous projects this year on flood risk management,” says Annette. Providing major sponsorship for many of the science fairs throughout New Zealand is part of NIWA’s long-term commitment to enhancing science and technology for young New Zealanders. Article compiled from press releases from NIWA and AUT

Ash Deshpande has recently joined GWE as a Technical Director. Ash has over 30 years of consulting experience, speciﬁcally in the ﬁelds of wastewater process engineering, treatment plant design and plant optimisation. He has worked extensively for local government and “wet” industries throughout New Zealand. He brings a huge amount of experience and innovation to the team. Ash is responsible for client liaison, technical guidance and the delivery of wastewater treatment plant projects.

Iain Rabbitts has also recently joined GWE and is working in the role of contract Principal Process Engineer. Iain has over 30 years of consulting experience, speciﬁcally in the design, commissioning, operation and optimisation of conventional and membrane water treatment plants. He is arguably New Zealand’s leading water process engineer and ﬂuoridation expert.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND HUMANITARIAN

Water4Kids trapped in the Ukraine warzone

Tara Okan

New Zealand water scientist Tara Okan is appealing for support from the water sector to help provide clean potable water and other essential aid to families of ‘children of the zero line’. Here, he explains how the Water4Kids project aims to send 3500 water filters to the many children trapped and living in ruined homes on the frontline of the Russian aggression.

Of the many casualties of war, truth and innocence are the first. The Russian invasion of Ukraine claims to never target civilians. This lie is revealed in the growing humanitarian crisis among thousands of families with children in Ukraine. The massive destruction of basic infrastructure has meant that water sources have become increasingly polluted with mud, soil, toxic chemical residue from explosives, and bacteria from rotting corpses, both human and animal, in some cases deliberately thrown into water supplies. With the loss of the Kherson dam, reservoir, pump

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stations, and reticulation systems, whole cities are without clean water. The line of active military engagement is termed the zero line. In many regions this is where the poorest families live – they cannot leave. They are financially unable to move or gain shelter away from the front lines. They are forced to stay. My journey to provide clean potable water to the children of the zero line began November 2022, through government ministries, military departments, embassies in New Zealand, Australia, Poland, and Ukraine – running parallel to a journey to find, import, modify and test a simple effective water treatment

system that required no electricity or chemicals, able to be used by people living in ruins that once were their homes and to achieve logistics into a war zone locked down by Ukrainian military. Volunteers cannot enter the zero line without express permission and documentation from the Ukrainian Department of Defence and, even if they could, we would not find the hidden children nor be able to speak their language. Enter Olesya Shyvikova, a Ukrainian immigrant, linguist, journalist, and film maker, currently resident in Canada. Her friends from school are now front-line

Left: The Russian invasion of Ukraine claims to never target civilians. This lie is revealed in the growing humanitarian crisis among thousands of families with children in Ukraine. Below: Much of Ukraine's water infrastructure has been destroyed. Bottom left: Water4Kids plans to distribute 3500 of these simple water filters. The top provides filtration by a multilayered ceramic candle that gravity feeds polluted water from the top though the candle, dripping clean potable water into the bottom. Bottom right: The water supply in Ukraine is severely impacted by the war.

soldiers in active command of troops on the zero line. Through Olesya, Water4 Kids gains direct contact with families and children under the shelling of the Russian invaders. One friend, call sign Phoenix, was an agricultural engineer testing farm water supplies. Now he is risking his life collecting water samples from different villages, stepping back in sequence from the front line, so we can have truth by data and send the most effective filtration. Standard filtration is useless here. The units we are proposing are simple. Two stainless steel containers, one sitting on top of another, with the bottom having a stainless-steel tap. The top provides filtration by a multilayered ceramic candle that gravity feeds polluted water from the top though the candle, dripping clean potable water into the bottom. These units come in three sizes, which nest inside each other to condense the freight. The units are light weight, strong and simple to use. The Water4Kids project aims to raise the funds to purchase 3500 units. A second phase of the aid mission, running parallel, is to obtain useful items to pack inside the tanks before transport into Ukraine. Logistics plans discussed with the relevant embassies include shipping the filters from manufacturer to an

undisclosed destination in Europe. When unpacked, the shipment becomes six times the volume and we seek to fill each drum with life sustaining items: Vitamin C, survival blankets, a first aid kit, fire starters, portable lights, disinfection materials, a block of chocolate, and school supplies in each one. Commercial sponsors are required for these items to be sourced in Europe and Canada. Transport into Ukraine is secret due to Russian aggression however, the end stage is the Road of Life, so named by Ukrainian military, a heavily defended road coming from the zero line on which wounded are carried back from the front. Military units will take the aid up the Road of Life and distribute it into the homes, farms, and villages of the zero. In this way, the Road of Life works in both directions. Evidence of delivery will be provided in a future article. So here we are, asking for your help. I

hope you will become inspired to reach out and send a message with your contact details to water4kids@protonmail.me. Join our mailing list and bring help to those that need it. This project needs people with skills in social media, networking, and graphic art; a website run (water4kids.org. nz); people to spread the word in their workplaces, to help us find sponsors of goods, services, and skills. I seek connection because we are the water industry of Aotearoa New Zealand. To quote Olesya, “Help us bring light into hell”. Tara Okan is a water scientist with Aquaero New Zealand. He is a father of four with personal experience in the work of Medecins Sans Frontieres. Olesya Shyvikova is a documentary filmmaker currently making two films on Ukraine; ‘Threads of Humanity’ – on war crimes – and ‘Children of Zero’.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND LEGAL

The good, bad, and ugly of planning laws This is a written version (of sorts) of the presentation I gave to the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023 on October 18. I had prepared the presentation with an overview of the changes to the RMA that have been signalled by the enactment of the Natural and Built Environments Act 2023 and the Spatial Planning Act 2023. However, as I know (and you know) the election has signalled a change to what happens to the RMA.

Helen Atkins, barrister/commissioner

In its plan for environment and conservation, ‘Blueprint for a Better Environment’, National says this:

Fixing planning laws

The RMA has buried the economy in red tape but failed to deliver the environmental protection we need. The Government’s RMA 2.0 legislation is even worse. “National will: 1. Repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act and related legislation by Christmas 2023 with planning to revert to previous RMA rules. 2. Amend existing rules to support rapid investment in infrastructure while protecting the environment. National will introduce or update National Policy Statements and National Environmental Standards for freshwater, housing, energy, transport, and water infrastructure to support investment within environmental limits.

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3. Commence work to replace the RMA with a planning act and a natural environment act. The replacement legislation will go back to basics to make it easier to build housing and infrastructure. First readings for both bills will be in the first term. “As part of the RMA replacement programme, National will consider ways to rebalance Te Mana o te Wai to better reflect the interests of all water users.” National is silent with regards to its plans for the Climate Change Adaption Bill but if it is within the package of reforms that are signalled to be repealed then it is likely that that Bill will not go any further towards enactment. National has a number of pages in its Blueprint document entitled ‘Delivering for the climate’. In short, it says that: “Labour have wasted six years and now New Zealand is off track for its 2030 climate change goals. With time running out, New Zealand needs effective action on emissions. National’s climate change plan targets New Zealand’s three main sources of emissions – agriculture (41 per cent of emissions), energy (20 per cent) and transport (19 per cent). National spells out what it will do in relation to these three emission sources. With regards to adaption National states that the recent weather events makes adaption to protect lives and livelihoods has become more pressing. National sets out a couple of areas it will focus on but is silent on the Adaption Bill.” National has said it will undertake its repeal plans in its first 100 days of taking

office. So, when do the 100 days start? Some election facts and figures: • The turnout for special votes was larger than initially expected, with 603,257 special votes cast (20.9 percent of the total 2,883,412 votes cast) compared to the roughly 570,000 the Electoral Commission projected. • Te Pāti Māori’s slightly larger share of the party vote means the number of overhang seats increases by one seat to 123 seats after the Port Waikato byelection, making for the largest New Zealand Parliament in history. • National will need the support of both ACT and NZ First to form the next Government. • The public declaration of the election was made on 8 November and there have been three applications for a judicial recount, overseen by a District Court Judge (Nelson, Mt Albert, Tāmaki Makaurau). If the recount finds that the public declaration is incorrect then an amended declaration will be ordered. • The first meeting of Parliament must take place within six weeks of the declaration of the election – that is after 10 November and no later than 21 December. So, what does the position of National actually look like? Currently we have two statutes (plus one in waiting) in place: The Natural and Built Environments Act (NBA), which sets out how the environment will be protected and used. It covers land use, environmental

protection, water takes, discharges and use of the coastal marine area; The Spatial Planning Act (SPA), which mandates that each region shall create a long-term spatial strategy; and The Climate Change Adaption Bill (CGAB) , which will address communityled retreat, and climate adaption funding and financing. The following provisions are in force now: • Fast-track consenting process for certain infrastructure and housing activities. • New maximum duration for some freshwater related consents related to the date that the NBA came into force – 24 August 2023. • Compliance and enforcement relate to the date that the NBA came into force. • Contaminated land – certain obligations on regional councils apply from when the NBA came into force. • Aquaculture management largely relate to the powers of the Minister of Aquaculture.

• Requiring authorities under the NBA changes apply from November 2023. As signalled, while the RMA has been repealed by the package of reform, the repeal is not immediately apparent as there will be a very long transition (minimum of 10 years) from the current regime to the new one. It is clear that while National does not like the RMA reform package, it equally does not like where the RMA has landed, so amendment of the RMA is on the cards under a National-led government. It also seems very likely that National will hold true to its election promise and repeal the reform package within 100 days of forming a government – which is likely to be in the first quarter of 2024. In terms of crystal ball predictions, it is anticipated that National will keep versions of the following changes to the RMA: • Fast track consenting for certain activities. • Clarity around environmental limits including increased use of national

policy instruments – such as keeping something like the national planning framework. • Spatial planning with changes to the way in which such planning occurs. It is anticipated that National will not keep many of the changes that set up regional committees and related matters to amend plans and policies and to formulate spatial plans. National’s views on Te Mana o te Wai and co-governance are well publicised and documented, and it would appear that Act and NZ First’s policies are largely in line with their likely coalition partner. In terms of where to from here, on both these changes and the signalled changes to the Affordable Waters reform, the only thing we can do now is wait and see. Wait and see when the new government takes office; wait and see when the 100 days of office starts from; and wait and see what the new government will actually do. The only thing that is certain is that change is inevitable – the form that change will take it less certain.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND COMMENT

Is it time for a major extension of the rules

for utilities in our transport corridors? By Jim Donovan (pictured), independent chair, NZ Utilities Advisory Group

Much of our infrastructure is built in our road and rail corridors. Utility operators and corridor managers face multiple challenges sharing these common arteries, such as traffic disruption, prolonged or repeated excavations, damage to our own and others’ infrastructure, unplanned utility service outages, and the requirements of multiple bureaucracies and individuals. These all increase direct and indirect costs and inefficiencies for our economy and society, as well as adding to accident rates and climate emissions. To help address the problem, in 2010 the Utilities Access Act was passed. It requires utility operators and transport corridor managers to adhere to a National Code of Practice for Utility Access to the Transport Corridors. The code was developed jointly by utility operators and corridor managers. With its underlying principles of collaboration and cooperation, the code is generally well supported and working practices have definitely improved. However, many of the old issues stubbornly remain. Compliance by organisations and individuals can be patchy; we rely on continued awareness and moral choice by individuals and organisations to follow the code. Asset strikes continue to happen (along with their accompanying repair costs, service disruptions, and delays to work), and are often unreported, leading to increased disruption and cost later. Unsurprisingly, there is widespread sentiment across much of the infrastructure sector that the code needs a stronger and broader mandate if we are to achieve its full potential. Many submissions to the current code review (due for completion early next year) have raised important and constructive proposals for strengthening the code to achieve increased awareness; greater training and accreditation; stricter compliance and enforcement; better dispute resolution; common data, process, and interface standards to improve works management, facilitate better record keeping, and lower asset strikes; and possible extended coverage beyond transport corridors (i.e.. to public and private land). These matters are substantially beyond the code’s existing legislative scope and funding model. For example, extending the code to include common standards for information interchange and administrative processes is widely seen as vital, but consensus is notoriously difficult in such matters, and people are understandably wary of capture by system service providers. Strengthening the code in the various ways proposed will require a much greater mandate from corridor managers, and utility operators, plus an appropriate funding model and, possibly, regulatory change.

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Consequently, we cannot include these proposals in the current code review recommendations. But they are vital proposals for the sector to consider, and should be the focus of a separate programme to agree if, how, and by whom such changes should be implemented and funded. Extensive consultation with the infrastructure sector and central government agencies will be required. This will be a key focus for NZUAG over the next 18-24 months, and will inform the next code review, which may be brought forward as a result. We all know that New Zealand faces major network infrastructure challenges. We have ageing networks and historical underfunding; climatic, sea-level, and seismic risks; and population growth, demographic change, and population shift. The scale and cost of the works required are substantial. Some will be new builds, but many will be replacements and upgrades. Increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of the administration and operation of works by corridor managers, utility operators, and their contractors will be an important strategy to improve the cost, time, and effort required, with substantial direct and indirect economic benefits. Given the scope and potential impact of the changes being proposed in the code’s mandate, we ideally want a broad consensus from the infrastructure sector. NZUAG is the national forum established for the sector to collaborate and cooperate on the code, but many affected parties are not NZUAG members. The larger infrastructure players will no doubt have a great deal of involvement in the debate and any developments arising from it. But what works for them may not be relevant or practicable for smaller entities; so we need the smaller utility operators and road corridor managers involved as well, along with the contractors and related trades who carry out the works. To help achieve that, at our AGM in November we will propose a new constitution creating a membership and fee structure more attractive for smaller organisations, and allowing contractors and related trades to participate in membership and governance. If your organisation is not a member, we invite you to join us and help shape the future of the code. The NZ Utilities Advisory Group is a consultative forum for utility operators and corridor managers to periodically review the National Code of Practice for Utility Operators’ Access to the Transport Corridors. Recommendations for changes to the code should go to the Minister for Infrastructure in early 2024, after which work will start on the issues raised in this article. Membership of NZUAG is open to all utility operators and corridor managers.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023 WATER NEW ZEALAND

WATER NEW ZEALAND COMMENT

Environmental impacts of building materials By Zhengwei Li, senior scientist, BRANZ Materials used in building and construction need to be both resilient and sustainable. However, environmental conditions can cause them to deteriorate – for example, metals corrode, polymers degrade, and timber rots. As a consequence, materials research now mainly focusses on how materials can resist deterioration over time. This is particularly relevant here, where our performance-based building code requires any functional component to meet minimum durability requirements of five, 15, and 50 years. One aspect requiring more investigation is developing an understanding of how materials and their environment-induced deterioration might affect the environment, namely our air, soil, and water.

volcanic, or industrial activities, and fertilisers used in agriculture. That said, the materials used for our buildings could potentially act as a source of heavy metals, microplastics, and other, yet unknown, substances as they deteriorate over time.

What are we doing at BRANZ?

Water quality research here predominantly focused on copper and zinc. It found that the dissolved median concentrations of these metals exceed default Australian and New Zealand guideline values for the protection of 95 percent of our biodiversity in some areas. There is still a significant knowledge gap here about the runoff from buildings. Limited efforts have been made to identify sources of origin and surface runoff pathways – a small-scale in-stream water quality monitoring project in Christchurch found that galvanized roofs may contribute approximately 81 percent of dissolved zinc.

BRANZ’s Environmental Impacts of Building Materials project aims to examine what is released from building materials to help fill gaps identified in the current runoff quality datasets. Scientifically, it looks at: • What is being discharged from buildings in terms of composition and concentration? • What are their discharging trends within the Building Code durability timeframe? • How is runoff quality correlated to material deterioration in terms of material type, building location, and environmental challenge? Experimentally, it focusses on: • Reviewing and benchmarking current evidence and observations; • Identifying representative material types and environmental challenges; • Designing and performing field- and laboratory-based runoff testing by leveraging BRANZ material performance monitoring network across the country; • Analysing results with an environmental contamination baseline; • Exploring the prospect for an inventory list describing contaminants from New Zealand buildings. The outputs produced may help reduce building material induced environmental impacts by: • Providing a better understanding of the sources of origin and transport to estimate contributions from different materials to the total flow of contaminants into the environment; • Supporting the phasing-out of specific materials with trustworthy data and evidence; • Raising the visibility of known and appropriate mitigation approaches such as material choices and engineered filtration systems.

Our challenging built environment

Let’s work together

International context

Water has been found to contain elevated concentrations of heavy metals when flowing over copper- and zinc-based roofs, gutters, or downspouts in Scandinavia, Europe, and the US. As a result, concerns about the quality of urban stormwater have been increasing and regulations such as the European Water Framework Directive have been introduced. Recent international studies found that the amount of micro-plastics from painted surfaces that enter the ocean every year could be as high as 1.5-2.25 million tonnes globally – equivalent to 150-225 billion plastic bottles. Building surfaces with decorative or anticorrosive paints might represent one of the richest sources of microplastics or paint particles.

The situation in New Zealand

Residential buildings are clad in a variety of materials, as seen in the BRANZ Materials and Characteristics Survey 2021. These include corrugated/long run steels – protected with zinc-based alloy coatings and/or paints; tiles – metal, clay, or concrete; asphalt shingles; or membranes – synthetic rubber, thermoplastic, or modified bitumen. In the meantime, new materials are emerging to provide cost, durability, or carbon benefits. Examples may include zinc-aluminiummagnesium alloy coatings, weathering steels, timbers treated with new preservatives, and natural fibre reinforced composites. These materials are challenged by our diverse, distinctive, and location-dependent environmental conditions. We have chloridecontaining salts from the sea, sulphur-containing gases from geothermal,

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This project is in its very early stages, and we welcome wider involvement from the science community, practitioners, society, and the industry as a whole. Particularly, we would like to invite you to share with us the awareness, concerns, and needs around runoff control and management. We would like to start a conversation with you with a view to delivering this project in a faster, better way, and work with us to transfer project outputs into engineering practice and, therefore, change how we manage this situation. With this co-creation approach, we want to help enhance, protect, and restore the health and well-being of our environment, particularly, water systems, regarding materials used in the built environment. For further information, please email me at Zhengwei.Li@branz.co.nz

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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WATER NEW ZEALAND ADVERTISER'S INDEX 43South ��33 Acuflo Industries Ltd ��63 ACO Limited ��79 Agruline ��43 Applied Instruments Group Ltd ��54 AquiSense �� 41 Armatec ��39 Arthur D Riley & Co Ltd ��51, 69 Beca ��55 Blick ��49 BPO Ltd ��68

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