Raupunga community digs in for reliable water supply

The work of Raupunga Water Committee members Guy Taylor (left) Theresa Thornton and Charles Lambert was recognised at the Hawke's Bay Health awards. Photo / Patrick O'Sullivan

For decades, the northern Hawke's Bay community of Raupunga has not had an adequate, safe drinking water supply - its 250 residents instead relying on rainwater to fill their tanks.

In dry times, some families had to manage with an inadequate amount of water as they could not afford tankers to replenish their supply.

As a result, they would "go without, where the basic things that people living in town can do without a second thought, are foreign to us".

Some would travel to Wairoa to do their washing or for showers. Others would have to boil water fetched from nearby waterways.

This all changed in July. Thanks to years of work by the community, gathering nearly $1 million, and the installation of a 9km pipe, Raupunga residents finally had access to safe, running water.

Raupunga Water Committee member Charlie Lambert said the town's residents were "happy as" that their goal had been achieved.

"It's going to make a big difference to people not to have to travel to town all the time, it's just a big load off everyone.

"It'll make a huge difference … especially the pressure during the summer. This time of year everyone's tightening up their belts and conserving water."

The Raupunga Water Committee, on behalf of Ngati Pahuwera Incorporated Society, was recognised for the work, last week receiving the Hawke's Bay DHB Commitment to Reducing Inequities Award.

This aims to improve access, reduce barriers and design services for Maori and Pasifika patients.

Mr Lambert said they had been very happy to receive the award. "It's helped to reinforce there's a lot of people who helped get this work done. It's quite good vindication for a lot of our own people."

The community has been helped along the way - after a four-year drive to gather funding, in 2013 an application was made for further funding from the Ministry of Health, with support from the Hawke's Bay District Health Board's public health team.

An error meant their successful application was under-costed, leaving them short "a few hundreds of thousands of dollars", Cameron Ormsby of the public health team said.

A huge community effort then drummed up more money with support from Te Puni Kokiri, the Ngati Pahauwera Development Trust, and the First Light Community Trust.

Work on the $1m project began in September last year and was finished in July, with members of the community completing much of the work.

"What's unique about the project is that the community did a lot of the work; they put in the pipeline, they hired a digger and had a work team that did a lot of the leg work," Mr Ormsby said.

"That was really good because the community, those workers bought into the ownership of the scheme and now they know how to run the [water treatment plant]."

Their high level of involvement meant the committee was quite cautious of their responsibility now to ensure the water remained safe, Mr Lambert said.

To that end, they had help in creating a water safety management plan, organising maintenance checks, and other innovative ideas to ensure the community understood and had the resources to maintain a safe supply going forward.