Flooding in Auckland this weekend has led to renewed focus on the Government’s Three Waters reforms.
The failure of Auckland’s infrastructure to handle the deluge has led to questions about whether the reforms, which would see stormwater pipes taken from councils and merged into one of four mega water entities, may have led to less severe flooding had they been implemented earlier.
This is because one of the main reasons for the reforms is to boost investment in new water infrastructure over the next 30 years, leading to better water services across all three waters.
Whether this means the reforms would have alleviated at least some of the flooding is more complicated than it seems.
Three Waters will have an impact on how the country managed flooding, with the water entities taking control of some stormwater assets like water pipes, from the councils that are currently responsible for integrating those assets into their plans for flood management.
Submissions on the Water Services Entities Bills warned the Government had not fully considered the impact the reforms would have on flooding. This persuaded some parties, including the Greens and National, to try convince the Government to turn Three Waters into Two Waters by keeping the responsibility for stormwater with councils.
The issue of Three Waters and flooding touches on one of the most controversial aspects of the reforms, which is that the entities will not only take pipes and reservoirs off councils, but natural assets like some parks.
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta told the Herald that the Government’s focus currently was on “supporting Auckland households, businesses, schools, marae, and infrastructure services respond to a severe emergency”.
“We need to be mindful that climate change and increased frequency of significant natural weather events on our livelihoods, requires us to plan and invest in the resilience of our towns and cities. This is an important challenge facing councils.”
Mahuta said the time “will come for a more considered review of what worked well and what didn’t work so well in terms of Auckland’s stormwater services”.
The Opposition urged caution in drawing too many conclusions from one event.
Auckland’s flooding was historic. It’s fair to say that, short of turning the city into an enormous drain, no stormwater system, no matter how effective, would have stood up to the deluge.
“Eden Park has state-of-the-art drainage systems - and it was turned into a lake,” said National’s local government spokesman Simon Watts.
Andreas Heuser, managing director of Castalia, who has done modelling for councils on the Three Waters reforms, said that “flood management is a combination of hard infrastructure (pipes, culverts and road drainage), network management, thoughtful urban planning and use of natural features.
“At present these are mostly managed under one roof in councils in concert with regional councils’ environmental management.
“A big and unresolved challenge with separating Three Waters from councils into four mega entities is how to improve the integration of urban planning, stormwater assets and wastewater infrastructure.
“The overseas evidence shows that mega-sized pan-regional water authorities are unlikely to properly take local conditions and geography into account when delivering water services in harmony with urban planning and environmental management,” he said.
As seen in Auckland at the weekend, managing stormwater involves a range of public infrastructure, including deliberately designed water catchments, council and central government-owned roads which are designed to direct water to drains, streams, and even public parks, which are designed to absorb heavy rainfall, even to the point of deliberately flooding.
And, as alluded to by Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown over the weekend, councils also have a role in planning where houses get built and ensuring flood management directs floodwaters away from inhabited areas.
Under Three Waters reforms and RMA reforms, councils, Three Waters entities, central government agencies like Waka Kotahi will all have to come together under the new RMA planning committees and jointly plan how floods are managed.
Previously, most of those jobs were handled in-house by councils, meaning they could co-ordinate where they developed new housing with their flood-management plans, ensuring that new development was not built in at-risk areas. As Brown alluded to over the weekend, this has not been done well in the past.
Submissions on the main Three Waters legislation, which passed at the end of last year, persuaded some political parties like the Greens and National to at least allow councils to keep stormwater management in-house, leaving the Three Waters entities to look after freshwater and drinking water.
In their minority opinion on the bill, the Green Party said stormwater management was “more complex than drinking water or wastewater systems” because of the way stormwater involved both below-ground things like pipes, and above ground things like gutters and flood flow-paths.
“Stormwater infrastructure and assets are diverse and can include pipes, swales, detention basins, ponds, wetlands, and urban (modified and unmodified) streams and rivers,” the Greens wrote.
They said that stormwater management was “strongly linked” to other things like “flood protection” and “resilience” and was therefore best kept with councils, who were responsible for planning.
“[T]here are mixed views across local government and strong opposition from metropolitan councils such as Auckland and Christchurch City to making WSEs [Water Services Entities - the new mega-water companies] responsible for stormwater because of these strong connections to placemaking and urban planning.”
The party warned that there was “scant” evidence of the benefit of putting stormwater management into the new water entities, and “no accurate estimate of the cost”.
The Greens’ submission was partly based on a Government-commissioned working group on stormwater that was stood-up in relation to the reforms, the Stormwater Technical Reference Group.
Green Party local government spokeswoman Eugenie Sage told the Herald the reason for stripping out stormwater from the other two waters was that stormwater systems are far more complicated than freshwater and wastewater and include things like parks, green spaces, urban trees, and wetlands - even cycleways - which all contribute to alleviating flood risk.
“You get much more integrated land management and stormwater management,” Sage said, describing the merits of keeping stormwater with councils.
She said that post-Earthquake developments in Christchurch had shown how integrating stormwater with land management had alleviated flood risk and created spaces for people to enjoy.
Sage said that stormwater needed to be even better integrated into land management and planning.
“We need many more permeable surfaces in our cities,” she said, citing the importance of urban tree cover and more green spaces in cities.
While councils and sector groups warned that splintering flood management assets and responsibilities could be a problem, supporters of the reforms saw opportunity.
The Stormwater Technical Reference Group reported back in June 2021 with a series of recommendations on how the reforms might manage stormwater.
The group found there were “significant operational benefits” to “consolidating” councils’ stormwater roles into the new entities. It said the status quo was a “complicated array of legislative provisions and powers, and planning and policy framework”.
Essentially, the group argued the current framework had many of the problems the reforms are also being accused of: it is too splintered and has too many lines of accountability.
But the group warned that simply lumping stormwater responsibilities into the reforms was almost impossible, given the roles other organisations played in flood management.
This is because while the water entities would take over some parts of stormwater, the reforms would not completely cut the cord with local authorities, regional councils, and road controlling authorities.
Under the current regime, councils differ in the way they manage stormwater. Some councils, like Auckland, both manage and regulate stormwater in-house.
Others split these responsibilities.
This presented a difficult choice for the Government in how it consolidates stormwater responsibilities in the new regime.
The group warned that if the Government was not careful, it could make the confusion around stormwater worse by leaving “stranded” almost redundant stormwater responsibilities with councils.
The Group flagged an issue that no doubt top of mind after the weekend’s floods: that there was “significant interface between stormwater systems and river and flood event management and hazard control”.
It said that at the time, transferring “regional council functions and infrastructure to manage flood risks is currently outside of the scope of the Three Waters Reform Programme”.
The group recommended reviewing who was responsible for what parts of stormwater as it relates to flooding.
Since then, legislation has been introduced to Parliament clarifying aspects of flood management in the reforms.
That legislation is yet to have its first reading, and flood management is likely to be a significant part of the debate over the bill this year.
Councils big and small raised concerns that there was little clarity over who would look after the flood management aspects of stormwater post-reform.
Flood planning is a significant task for councils who have to integrate it with things like planning for housing, parks, and stormwater infrastructure.
At worst, this would leave flood planning in a state of limbo.
Auckland Council warned the Government that its legislation had not “defined” who had “responsibility for flooding prevention” under the reforms.
The Waiheke, Waitakere Ranges, and Waitematā local boards all raised concerns the Government had not properly considered flooding in the legislation.
“Stormwater is intrinsically linked to placemaking and intricately connects with several other council roles and functions. Many of these involve material overlaps: they serve different functions at different times.
“These include resource and building consenting to ensure sufficient permeable surfaces and utilisation of stormwater, wetlands rich with biodiversity and parks which serve as catchments for occasional flooding,” wrote the Waitematā local board.
Meanwhile, the Waimakariri District Council said the Government reforms were not clear about whether the new entities would just be taking control of stormwater pipes, or whether they would include “land drainage and flood protection schemes”.
Some of this clarity may come soon, as new legislation clarifies what assets will and will not be taken over by the new entities.
But complexity seems unavoidable and this has raised the eyebrows of the opposition.
Watts told the Herald that by the reforms’ very nature, they are likely to increase complexity.
“The more boundary lines, the more complexity. When you start to break the system up - it becomes difficult,” Watts said.
Act’s local government spokesman Simon Court was blunt, saying that councils were “best placed to manage land development and stormwater”.
“While they have not always done a good job in the past, they should be held to account. Three Waters entities will be less accountable to local communities for flooding and stormwater,” Court said.
The Government has already said it will split up stormwater assets like parks, with some parks staying with councils and others moving to the new entities.
Councils will keep parks whose primary role is not related to stormwater, however they will lose parks that are mainly designed as a water catchment.
All parks, as seen in Auckland, play an important role as a catchment for flooding. Having some parks owned by councils and others owned by the water entities could create complexity when both are required to contribute to flood management.
An example is Wellington’s waterfront Waitangi Park, which was mentioned in Parliament last year.
Mahuta said Waitangi Park was an “excellent example” of Te Mana o te Wai, a principle that runs through the reforms.
“Its environmentally sustainable design implements water-sensitive urban design for harvesting and treating stormwater while also delivering recreational benefits to the people of Wellington. Under the water reforms and the guiding principles of Te Mana o te Wai, I know that many more communities will see projects like this occur over the country,” Mahuta said.
There are also conflicting jurisdictions around stormwater as it relates to things like roads. Minister have had to specifically exclude roads from Three Waters reforms, meaning that the gutters that direct stormwater from the streets remain with their current owners.
That again is a significant concession. Cities like Auckland have a vast network of roads that capture an awful lot of stormwater and play a key role in directing it away from areas it might flood.
Councils and three waters entities will need to find some way of ensuring that the owners of the multiple parts of the new stormwater network work together to avoid flooding.
Currently, a transition unit within DIA is working with councils on the future of their stormwater assets, including the question of which go into the new water entities, and which stay out.
One of the strongest arguments for change is that the new entities will borrow and spend far more on water infrastructure than councils have done in the past.
However, there is no clarity on just how much the entities will invest in stormwater in the future.
The Government says that $140 billion to $185b will need to be invested in water infrastructure in the next thirty years, a figure that includes stormwater.
However critics fear the entities will be focused on fresh and waste water, leaving stormwater as an afterthought.
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