Editorial: Wellington water problem has a clear solution - water meters

Crews working to repair a burst water pipe in central Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell

EDITORIAL

Wellingtonians are once again facing the threat of running dry this summer, as their precious drinking water continues to leak down Lambton Quay.

The situation is looking so dire residents have been queueing for hours to get hold of emergency water tanks and authorities have planned for a regional state of emergency should water levels drop further next month.

The region moved to Level 2 restrictions last week, banning residential sprinklers and irrigation in Wellington, Porirua and the Hutt Valley. People can still water their gardens with a hose.

Within 24 hours of the new restrictions coming in, a press release was issued titled “Kāpiti residents enjoy a summer free of water restrictions”.

“While parts of the Wellington Region are facing water woes, Kāpiti Coast residents are enjoying a water-restriction-free summer thanks to sound investment in the district’s water infrastructure and water metering,” it said.

Smug perhaps from the capital’s northern neighbours but the situation is something Kāpiti Coast District Council should be proud of, with the introduction of water meters in 2014 proving to be a resounding success for the region.

Within 18 months of them being brought in, 443 leaks had been found and 97 per cent of them were fixed, leading to a 90 per cent decrease in water use.

It was, however, a move that came at the highest cost for advocate and then-mayor Jenny Rowan, who ultimately paid for it with her job.

Residents today may celebrate their metered stability and resilience but at the time it was fiercely fought with petitions and protests. Rowan lost the election but left a legacy now celebrated by those same critics.

Wellington’s issue is leaks, and a lack of money and resources to find and fix them.

Wellington is still losing most of its water through leaks in the pipe network.

The capital still loses 40 to 50 per cent of its water every day to leaks, and in November it was revealed the eye-watering cost to fix the city’s crumbling infrastructure is “a billion dollars a year, every year for 10 years”.

It’s not like water meters haven’t been recommended before as a way to fix the problem.

In 2020, then-mayor Andy Foster launched a mayoral task force into the water situation following several high-profile pipe failures.

It found water meters should be introduced to enable “rapid location and addressing of leaks”, and to give “an accurate picture of the actual levels of leakage in the drinking-water system”.

That same year, a leak in Upper Hutt was found to be losing 20,000 litres of water a day. An audit of Wellington Water found the organisation was unable to accurately report a reliable water loss percentage to each council due to the limited number of water meters across the network.

Greater Wellington Regional Council chair Daran Ponter, a supporter of water meters, said the region was “blind to the scale of leak issues without metering”.

But that was it - the meters never came, and four years on things have only got worse.

Wellington’s new mayor and councillors have kicked the can further down the road, declining funding for meters in the draft long-term plan, citing the high cost of installation.

Porirua mayor Anita Baker is a fan of water meters and wants them introduced but has been quoted acknowledging that such a move can be “political suicide”.

History proves water meters are a tough sell politically, but that’s no excuse for the fact our capital city is on the brink of a water disaster.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t take a state of emergency for sense to prevail, and for the region’s current politicians to remember who they’re there to serve.