Draft Annual Plan 2013/14 (10Mb PDF) - Taupo District Council

Financial strategy
Council’s financial strategy is to use capital from land, property and forestry sales
to start paying down loans relating to the ETA project – land purchases, and the
construction costs. This year the income target is $5.1 million. Council is also
increasingly paying the interest on those loans.
Consistent with the Long Term Plan, Council plans to run at an operating deficit
this year as part of its three year financial strategy to reduce the impact on current
ratepayers of fully funding the interest cost on the ETA and Property Debt. Council is
balancing the books this year by applying property and forestry sales to the shortfall.
Council will continue to use the TEL Fund earnings to subsidise rates.
New Taupō water comes on stream causing rate rise
The upgraded water treatment plant on Lake Terrace will come on stream at the
beginning of 2013/14, providing 25,000 cubic metres of water a day to meet New
Zealand Drinking Water standards.
The water rate in Taupō town will rise by $95 per rating unit from $294 to $389 to
meet central government’s water quality requirements. Water rates are, therefore, a
large and unavoidable component of rate increases in the township. (For water, this
excludes Acacia Bay, Mapara etc).
In the new plant, the water is treated in several stages:
1. Water is filtered through a 3mm mesh screen at the Lake intake.
2. We filter out anything bigger than 0.3mm with a fine screen.
3. We add a coagulant to the water so that (very) small particles clump together
(flocculation).
4.The water goes through microfilter membranes to remove bacteria, protozoa (such
as cryptosporidium, giardia) and the clumped (flocculated) material.
Each membrane is a very fine hollow tube, just over 1mm in diameter, and yet they
are 2 metres long, and they sieve out all the fine particles in the water. There are
nearly 2 million of these very fine membranes, with 6000 membranes in a module,
grouped into 320 modules, and configured in 4 “trains”. Any 3 trains can produce
sufficient water for the town at most times of the year.
The process is so clever that it puts some membranes through a cleaning cycle while
still filtering water through other ones.
Not without cost
The upgraded water treatment plant will enable Council to demonstrate that its
drinking water meets the New Zealand Drinking Water standards. While many longtime
residents were confident about water quality, central government has imposed
these standards on all New Zealand communities.
The new water treatment plant will cost more to operate. In addition, Taupō town also
has to start repaying the loan we used to build the plant. As the water rate is a targeted
rate (by each scheme), only Taupō town residents pay for the new plant (Acacia
Bay and Mapara are on different schemes). As a result, to meet central government
requirements, the water rate for Taupō township will rise by $95 per rating unit.