Drinking Water Assessments Under the Local Government Act - A Hawke's Bay Case Study
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Bridget O’Brien, WSP New Zealand Ltd
By July 2026, all territorial authorities need to have undertaken an assessment of drinking water services in their districts as a result of changes made to the Local Government Act. These assessments need to determine water supply demand, safety, quality and any potential risks. Assessments include communities who receive drinking water services from councils and other drinking water suppliers.
Wairoa District Council, Napier City Council, Hastings District Council and Central Hawke’s Bay District Council jointly undertook the Hawke’s Bay Private Water Supplies Project. Its purpose was to engage with a sample of private water suppliers and assess the risks to their water supply so that they could:
• Understand how best to assess private water supplies when undertaking their assessments of drinking water services
• Support their communities to provide safe drinking water
• Influence the way these assessments are carried out across the rest of New Zealand
• Understand their potential liability with under-performing private water supplies.
Potential private water supplies were identified through interviews with key stakeholders, reviewing previous water and sanitary services assessments and multiple GIS data sources. It is estimated that there are between 3,900 and 6,900 private water supplies in Hawke’s Bay.
Fifty engagements with private water suppliers were held, which included a face-to-face interview and a questionnaire about their water supply. Finding suppliers willing to engage in the project took a significant amount of time and effort. This will be much more straightforward once all supplies are registered in 2025.
Key findings were that most private water suppliers did not understand the changes being proposed in the Water Services Bill (which was enacted partway through the project). Two thirds of the water supplies were untreated; treatment was more common on bore supplies, but was uncommon on roof water and spring water supplies. Many suppliers did not have an alternative water supply that they could connect to if they lost access to their water supply.
Taking the learnings from this project, we recommend that the councils take the following steps for their drinking water assessments:
1 Identify and prioritise communities to focus on those with the greatest need.
2 Engage with communities to understand any issues they have with the quantity and quality of their drinking water, and to improve the understanding of private drinking water supplies in those communities.
3 Engage with a sample of private drinking water suppliers in those communities to gain a deeper understanding of the safety and sufficiency of water in those communities.
4 Summarise the findings and recommendations, and use these to inform the council’s Asset Management Plan, Infrastructure Strategy and Long Term Plan (or the Water Services Entity’s Asset Management Plan and Infrastructure Strategy).Report back to communities on the results and recommendations about how they can be supported to provide access to safe and sufficient water for their community.