Long Term Community Plan 2012-2022 - Hurunui District Council

Activity 1: Water Supply
Overview
The Water Supply activity includes the various functions of rural
and township water supplies.
Current Situation
The quality and quantity of drinking water in the Hurunui
District remains a concern and priority for us.
There are currently 13 Council owned water schemes in the
District, extracting water from 22 different sources, five others
are for emergency backup supply if required. Eight of these intake
sources are on permanent boil water notices (method used for
killing any bacteria, viruses, ova and cysts that may be present
in potentially contaminated water). The schemes are overseen
by Water Committees with delegated responsibilities for the
planning and development of their schemes, alongside council
officers. A schedule of the water schemes is included within
this section. On-demand water is supplied to 8 of the urban
communities in the district; these being from 7 high pressure
schemes consisting of 9 water intakes and 60 km of pipe.
Other small urban communities (Leithfield, Cheviot, Gore Bay,
Rotherham, Greta Valley, Amberley Beach and Motunau Beach)
are supplied via tanks from restricted rural supplies. All rural
communities in the district are serviced by Council operated
restricted-flow water supplies providing water to consumers
as “units” of water supplied into individual tanks. One unit is
1800 litres supplied over 24 hours, except for Balmoral and
Amuri Plains, where a unit is 1000 litres per day. The Hurunui
and Cheviot Rural Water Schemes cover four separate supplies
within each of their areas. The Ashley Scheme also has four
distinct intake sources and includes part of the Waimakariri
District within its boundaries.
All townships with on-demand supplies, except Leithfield Beach
have metered connections and charges are made on actual
water consumption used.
The levels of service for our water supplies can be found in
the appendices section of this plan. These levels of service are
monitored internally and will not be reported in the Annual
Report.
Plans for the Future
The availability of safe drinking-water for all New Zealanders,
irrespective of where they live, is a fundamental requirement
for public health. The revised Drinking-Water Standards are
a significant achievement in New Zealand’s endeavours to
maintain and improve the quality of drinking-water.
Since the publication of Drinking-Water Standards for New
Zealand 2000, the approach to managing drinking-water has
changed. The focus has moved from quality control to a broader
approach of quality assurance. This has been necessary due
to changes in technology, an improvement in our scientific
Hurunui Community Long Term Plan 2012 - 2022
knowledge and the requirement to address a broader range of
issues than previously covered. This change has been managed
though the Drinking-Water Standards for New Zealand 2005
(revised 2008) (DWSNZ).
The Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007 amended
the Health Act 1956 to require all drinking-water suppliers
providing water to consumers to develop and start to implement
a Public Health Risk Management Plan (PHRMP) to guide the safe
management of each minor drinking-water supply (501 to 5000
consumers) before 01 July 2014 onwards. A Public Health Risk
Management Plan is a tool to help suppliers identify, manage and
minimise events that would cause water quality to deteriorate.
This amendment marks a milestone in New Zealand in that, for
the first time, all drinking-water suppliers have a duty to ensure
their drinking-water supply is safe to drink.
The three main themes covered by the DWSNZ are maximum
acceptable values (water quality standards for microbial,
chemical and radiological determinants); the compliance criteria
and reporting requirements; and lastly, the remedial actions to be
taken when non-compliance is detected. The quality of the water
that is provided will continue to be governed by the DWSNZ,
which prescribes the maximum allowable concentrations of
potentially harmful contaminants that may be present in the
drinking-water supplied.
The penalties for failing to comply with DWSNZ are very severe
($200,000 plus for a continuing offence, and $10,000 for each
day of continued non-compliance). Accordingly, we have worked
hard with our local water and ward committees to ensure that
the requirements under DWSNZ are met within the PHRMP
compliance times specified, with latitude for affordability.
Six of our 22 water supply sources are defined as “minor”
supplies, which require PHRMP compliance with the Act by 1
July 2014. Of these seven intakes; three have approved PHRMP’s,
one has a current drafted PHRMP (to be submitted to Ministry
of Health (MoH) for endorsement); two are currently being age
tested (deep water secure sources); and the remaining one is
currently being drafted. The other 16 drinking water sources
are categorised as either “small”, “neighbourhood” or “rural
agricultural” with PHRMP compliance timeframes of 01 July
2015, 2016 or later than 2016 respectively. Table 1 in this section
details the situation for all of our drinking water supplies.
The cost to fully comply with DWSNZ is currently estimated at
an additional $14 million (capital works) and a further $484,000
per annum (operational costs) in today’s dollar value. Initial
discussions with the Ministry of Health (Canterbury District
Health Board) indicated that we must meet physical compliance
no later than three years after the final compliance approval
date for the PHRMP, for each shallow at-risk intake source.
This comes at a huge capital expenditure from 2017 to 2020.
We have raised with MoH, the affordability issue for a small
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