Ashburton’s chief executive has warned its three waters budget isn’t enough to cover the rising costs of water services.

Hamish Riach warned councillors at last week’s Three Waters Committee meeting that in developing the council’s water services delivery plan, it is apparent the budget isn’t enough.

The district council - which plans to go it alone on water services - will workshop the delivery plan on Wednesday ahead of submitting it before the deadline of September 3.

“As our knowledge grows around compliance and as the situation becomes clearer, we are seeing that the water service delivery plan is contemplating budgetary impact greater than council has currently got in their [long-term plan],” Riach said.

“It was utterly inevitable, and we said that through that work, that when you're moving into a new environment - where the Commerce Commission exists and it didn't before, [national water regulator] Taumata Arowai are continuing to develop their regulations, that the costs of delivering water can only go up regardless of the way in which water is delivered structurally.

“The budget in the LTP is simply not going to provide for the cost of delivering water services in the future.”

The council adopted a stand-alone business unit on May 21 as the delivery model for its Water Services Delivery Plan for the future delivery of water services under the Government’s Local Water Done Well programme.

Figures show almost 30% of councils have opted for an in-house model, with 67% entering multi-council-controlled organisations, and under 5% in stand-alone CCOs.

Selwyn became the first water services entity to be established under the Government’s Water Done Well legislation.

Selwyn Water Limited, a stand-alone CCO, launched on July 8 and will deliver drinking and wastewater services to around 30,000 households and over 8,000 businesses across New Zealand’s fastest-growing region.

The councillors had voted 6-5 to move the district’s drinking and wastewater to a council-controlled organisation (CCO) in April.

That decision received plenty of pushback, with 89% of the submissions calling for the alternative in-house model.

Pipe renewals falling behind

Mayor Neil Brown was concerned that the district’s pipe renewals weren’t happening fast enough.

Asset manager Andy Guthrie said they could “be a bit higher than they are”.

“Wastewater is not far away from where it should be, but water looks like it's below where we need to be.”

Over the last 10 years, the council has renewed 35.8km of drinking water pipes – 6.8% of the network that measures 527.2km. There was 7.2km (1.4%) in the last year.

For wastewater, there have been 24.3km of pipe renewals, which is 11.9% of the 208.3km network. There was 4.6km (2.2%) in the last year.

Proctor Park fence

Councillor Richard Wilson sought clarification on whether the installation of a fence had set a precedent for all stormwater swales in the district.

The fence Wilson referred to was installed at Proctor Park to separate the playground from the stormwater ponds.

Water services manager Ulrich Glasner said it was a risk assessment approach based on the proximity to the playground and the water depth.

Chief executive Hamish Riach reinforced the decision to install the fence was “for the safety of this particular site as opposed to setting a particular precedent around fences in all cases”.

Rakaia water meter trial

The finer details of a water meter trial in Rakaia are under wraps for now.

The council is working with leading digital metering company Intellihub to trial smart water meters on 350 properties on the eastern side of Rakaia township for 12 months.

The meters are equipped with advanced water metering technology that captures data every 30 minutes and uploads it to a cloud platform.

Water services manager Ulrich Glasner said an MOU has been signed, but there is a non-disclosure agreement due to the commercially sensitive information, restricting the council from publicly discussing details of the project.

By Jonathan Leask