Pipeline

There’s still a short time left to get your Stormwater and Modelling abstracts in, more on the untapped potential of biosolids and the growing need for “spongy” cities.

View Pipeline


Pipeline - 7 March

Smart buying approaches to uplift water service delivery, Water New Zealand Conference and Expo stands now on sale and find out more about world-renowned plastic pollution researcher Charles Moore and his hopes for plastic-free “hope-spots”.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 22 February

2024 conference updates, international microplastics pioneer to speak at two water events in Aotearoa NZ, the latest on the Government’s water reform proposals and an update on Taumata Arowai’s focus for the year. These topics and plenty more – read on


View Pipeline

Pipeline - 8 February

Fast track consenting, Stormwater conference earlybird deals now open, nationwide water metering on the agenda and our 2024 photo competition gets underway

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 25 January

Happy New Year – see the latest on the Government’s water reforms, the call for abstracts for the Stormwater Conference and Modelling Symposium close soon, and take a look at our new 2024 learning opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 21 December

Meri Kirihimete - Merry Christmas

From all of us at Water New Zealand, we hope you have a safe and happy holiday season.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 7 December

Water New Zealand’s “no regrets” message to the incoming Government, the latest edition of Water is now online, and see 2024 Digital Badge learning opportunities.  View Pipeline

Pipeline - 23 November

Stormwater 2024 exhibition stands sell-out, last opportunity to enrol in digital badge learning opportunities for 2023 and do you want to showcase your work at the Modelling Symposium?

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 9 November

Don’t miss our World Water Film Festival event, we explain why we need a Minister for Water, listen to young water professionals on climate change and find out why Hokianga iwi are angry about water management.

View Pipeline

Pipeline- 26 October

Join us for our first-ever World Water Film Festival evening, see what’s happening over plans to co-host the 10th IWA ASPIRE Conference in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and check out our two new digital badge learning opportunities – Rural Waters and School Drinking Water (Self Supply) 101.

View Pipeline here

Pipeline - 12 October

Get in quick to get your tickets to our World Water Film Festival evening, there’s a lot of consultation happening that we want our members’ feedback on, it’s conference week next week and amongst the many discussions and presentations, there'll be a special pre-conference Taumata Arowai update on the implications of Queenstown's cryptosporidiosis outbreak.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 28 September

Listen to our latest podcast and find out how Anglian Water became a world-leader in carbon emissions reduction, if you’re a Water New Zealand member – don’t forget to vote in our board elections, and it’s almost conference time.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - Waikārere 14 September

Tēnā koutou katoa, we hope you’re having a very happy Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – see our very cool poster – Te Waiora – the Life-Giving Waters. Also in Pipeline this week - Water New Zealand Excellence Awards 2023 finalists, and nominations for new board members.

View Waikārere

Pipeline - 31 August

Find out about the proposed National Engineering Design Standards, register for our webinar on the water reform legislative changes and what they mean for water services, and have you heard our new podcast on the water sector’s journey to carbon zero?

View Pipeline

Pipeline- 17 August

Reform legislation set for enactment, who’s on the new Auckland and Northland water services establishment board, we want to hear your views on climate change adaptation challenges, and make sure you get your conference poster summary sorted – deadline is soon! View Pipeline

Pipeline - 03 August

Big win for the definition of pipe water, legislation update and the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2023 draft programme is now live – take a look View Pipeline

Pipeline - 20 July

Water sector transformation – see what the water sector could look like by mid-century and how we can get there, update on water reform legislation progress and see conference updates. View Pipeline

Pipeline - 6 July

Find out more about the state of drinking water in Aotearoa, don’t miss out on great conference earlybird deals, check out our new Sampling 101 Digital Badge learning opportunity and loads of events coming up.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 22 June

Nominations are open for the Water New Zealand Excellence Awards, do our quick survey for a chance to join us at our conference for free, and register to learn more about Taumata Arowai’s first full year drinking water report.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 8 June

Select Committee reports back on key water bills, see latest update on Drinking Water Protection Conference and it’s World Oceans Day. View Pipeline

Pipeline - 25 May

Biggest-ever stormwater conference wraps up, see our award winners and other news.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 11 May

See you at Stormwater 2023, there’s still time to have a say on the National Code of Practice for Three Waters Reticulation and plenty of other consultations underway. View Pipeline

Pipeline - 27 April

Help us create a new modelling guide for stormwater, find out the latest on reducing carbon in built-in infrastructure and if you’re a young water professional – take a look at new learning and networking opportunities. View Pipeline 

Pipeline - 13 April

Water reform reset announced, tools you need for change – training programme, and conference updates.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 30 March

See our latest National Performance Review findings, last days for Stormwater conference earlybird registration and check out new events and learning opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 16 March

See the latest edition of Water online, our Water New Zealand 2023 events – what you need to know now, and get a good deal to OzWater.  View Pipeline

Pipeline - 2 March

October conference expo stands went on sale today, help us celebrate World Water Day and link to our newly launched Pipeline+ for members. View Pipeline 

Pipeline - 16 February

Stormwater 2023 - latest conference update, see our draft submission on PFAS management, read about options for managed retreat, as well as plenty of training and development opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 2 February

There’s still a short time left to get your Stormwater and Modelling abstracts in, more on the untapped potential of biosolids and the growing need for “spongy” cities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 19 January

Happy New Year! We hope you had a relaxing enjoyable break. 2023 is underway and already we’re just a week or two from our Stormwater Conference and Modelling Symposium abstract deadlines – so don’t delay.

The Government’s legislation programme is also marching on and we urge you to read the reform bills and make sure you have your say. Plus there’s loads of events coming up – so take a look further down.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 22 December

Wishing you a happy and safe holiday season. We’ll be closing our office on December 23 and opening on January 9. Look forward to seeing you again in 2023.

Read Pipeline

Pipeline - 8 December

Water Services Entities legislation passes through Parliament, join PFAs webinar and register for a conversation with Water Industry Commission for Scotland CEO Alan Sutherland.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 24 November

Check out the latest edition of Water, our conference papers are now online, and see new moves to manage PFAS in the environment.  View Pipeline

Pipeline - 10 November

Further reform legislation set to be introduced soon, Taumata Arowai names new CEO and you can now view or listen to the full discussion with Tā Tipene O’Regan on treaty issues and water. 

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 27 October

We had a great conference in Ōtautahi Christchurch last week – see highlights, and we want to hear your thoughts on Three Waters transformation.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 13 October

Conference time – we’re all ready! New dates for Cultural Significance and Importance of Wai training modules and a day in the life of a water engineer.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 29 September

New Water New Zealand Conference & Expo expo stands released, find out more about the workshops on offer at the Conference and the Water Services Entity Establishment Board expressions of interest.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 15 September

Join us in celebrating Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and the important role that wāhine (women) have in Te Ao Māori to ensure the sustained flow of the life-giving waters. Make sure you register for the Lightning talk session with Water New Zealand - day to day activities of a Water Engineer webinar, listen to our latest podcast on carbon challenges and learn about new building dam safety regulations.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 1 September 2022

See our release on the Water Services Entities Bill, our latest Te Wiki o te Reo Māori poster that you can print and put on your wall, and find out about the latest webinars and learning opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 18 August

Have you got your conference tickets yet? Get in quick to enter our industry awards and find out about plenty of interesting upcoming events and learning opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline - 4 August

In this week’s Pipeline - recognise excellence by entering or nominating colleagues in the Water New Zealand Excellence Awards, find out how New Zealanders use water, what we’re doing about plastic rubbish our waterways and check out new learning opportunities.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 21 July 2022

Conference earlybird deals now on sale, new drinking water regulatory report, water bottling consent quashed and last days to submit on the Water Services Entities Bill. Read Pipeline

Pipeline 7 July 2022

Economic regulation – challenges and opportunities, find out how New Zealanders use water in the home and what the new Australian-New Zealand flushable standard means. View Pipeline

Pipeline - 23 June 2022

Mānawatia a Matariki​ - we hope you enjoy this time of renewal with family and friends.

View Pipeine

Pipeline 9 June 2022

Have your say on the new Water Services Entities Bill, find out more about economic regulation in the water sector and see who won this year’s photo competition. View Pipeline

Pipeline 26 May 2022

We’re here at Claudelands – at our second conference in a fortnight! Don’t forget to vote in our photo competition and check out new professional development and learning opportunities. View Pipeline

Pipeline 12 MAY 2022

Yay – nearly conference time!  Take a look at our exciting presentations and workshops, listen to our latest podcast - Te Mana o te Wai,  and read the latest features in the digital edition of Water.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 28 April 2022

Final opportunity to nominate your colleagues for Stormwater Awards, find out about the latest training opportunities and how to become a water sector mentor.

See Pipeline

Pipeline 14 April 2014

Orange means go!

We can now welcome everyone to our two key events in May – the Stormwater Conference and Part 2 of our Water Conference and Expo postponed from 2021. 

In the meantime, have a safe and happy Easter break.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 31 March 2022

See our latest conference updates, find out more about our workforce strategy and take a look at the new-look Water Directory. View Pipeline 

Pipeline 17 March 2020

See the latest on Aotearoa New Zealand’s water service delivery performance through our National Performance Review, register for one of our webinars on three waters reform industry transformation and find out how you could showcase your work at our Water New Zealand Conference & Expo 2022. View Pipeline

Pipeline 3 March 2022

The Water New Zealand Conference and Expo is finally underway, see the latest appointments to the three waters reform programme and take a look at new learning opportunities for 2022.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 17 February 2022

The Water New Zealand Conference and Expo - we're all set to go but you can still register for this key event, submissions on improving drinking water source protection close soon, and would you like to join our team and help make a positive difference to the future of our water environment in Aotearoa New Zealand? View Pipeline

Pipeline 3 February 2022

See the latest on our Water New Zealand Conference and Expo - now in two parts, more on source water protection and cyanobacteria risks, check out new learning and professional development opportunities for 2022 and find out how to enter our photo competition - there's a great prize for the winner!

View Pipeline

Pipeline 20 January 2022

Happy New Year.  We hope you have had a relaxing and enjoyable summer break. 

2022 is set to be another busy year in water.

The Water New Zealand Conference is all set for next month while registration for the Stormwater Conference opened today and opportunities to present an abstract close soon. 

Meanwhile our thoughts are with the people in Tonga - contaminated water is one of many major problems people are facing following the weekend's volcanic eruption and tsunami.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 22 December 21

Meri Kirihimete and Happy New Year from all of us at Water New Zealand. 

We wish you a very happy festive season.  2021 has certainly been an eventful year and already 2022 is looking to be another busy one.  We hope to see you at one or more of our many events and learning opportunities in the pipeline for next year.

In the meantime, stay safe and enjoy a relaxing time with family and friends  - please note that our office will be closed from 24 December till 10 January.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 9 December 2021

The latest on Three Waters Reform economic and consumer protection regulation, view our webinar on Navigating to Net Zero and catch up on the latest industry news and job opportunities. 

View Pipeline

Pipeline 25 November 2021

Join us on our low carbon journey as we navigate to net zero, read about new smart water technology in Water, and catch up with the latest in drinking water regulations through our webinars 

View Pipeline

Pipeline 11 November 2021

Tomorrow marks the final day of COP26, UN’s critical climate summit, touted as the “last best hope for the world to get its act together”. World leaders are meeting to find a way to hold temperature rise to 1.5 degrees celsius, requiring greenhouse gas emissions to fall by 45% from 2010 levels by the end of this decade. In this week's Pipeline, we bring you news and events exploring the role of the New Zealand water sector in rising to this challenge.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 28 October 2021

In this week's Pipeline - Government to press ahead with Three Waters reform; take a look at the recently released Draft Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules, and earlybird registration for the 2021 Water Asset Management Forum has been extended to 1 Nov.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 14 October 2021

In this week's Pipeline - an update from Taumata Arowai; take a look at the recently released draft Drinking Water Acceptable solutions; world's first positive news platform, and act quickly to get your earlybird registration for the 2021 Water Asset Management Forum - closes 17 Oct. 

View Pipeline

Pipeline 30 September 2021

In this week's pipeline - the Water Services Bill has been passed by Government; New dates announced for the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo 2021 and advance your career in water by joining the October cohort of our Digital Badges. 

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 16 September 2021

How's your Te Reo use going in this Te Wiki o te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week)?

In this week's Pipeline update: find out how to translate your job title using te Reo Māori with our Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2021 – Ngā momo Kaimahi Whakapai Wai poster; register for our lunchtime webinar on understanding the importance of your water networks; read about the power of wastewater testing and save the dates in your calendar for next year's Modelling Symposium, 16-17 March 2022, in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington).

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 2 September 2021

New dates announced for the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo. 

In this week's Pipeline: get your industry insights from the latest issue of Water, check out our new Wastewater 101 - digital badge, read about the power of wastewater testing and save the dates in your calendar for next year's Stormwater Conference, 18 -20 May 2022 in 
Ōtautahi Christchurch. 

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 19 August 2021

As the country has moved to Alert Level 4, Water New Zealand hope that you, your whānau, colleagues and employees are okay! 

 We want to remind everyone to only flush the 3p’s: poo, pee and toilet paper down the loo! Help keep our emergency wastewater workers safe and in their bubble by thinking before you flush – all wipes, paper towels and tissues must go in the bin. Please help share this message.

And to everyone working in the water sector, especially our essential workers – thank you! 

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 5 August 2021

Time is running out to get your nominations in for the Water New Zealand Excellence Awards. Find out about new professional development and learning opportunities, and how to estimate your organisation's carbon emissions.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 22 July 2021

Get your entries in for the 2021 Water New Zealand Excellence Awards, it is a great way to give your team and your organisation the recognition they deserve. And, if you are a Water New Zealand member and you missed our latest Three Waters Reform update webinar, you can now watch it online.  View Pipeline

Pipeline 8 July 2021

Ngā mihi o te tau hou! Happy Matariki!

In this week's Pipeline, read about the water stars of Matariki and hear what Matariki means to some of our members. Plus, if you haven't already registered, you have until 16 July to take advantage of the Earlybird and Group registration packages for the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo.

View pipeline 

Pipeline 24 June 2021


Water New Zealand Backflow Conference earlybird sale ends soon, get in quick to receive a huge discount. 

In this week's Pipeline; New Zealanders rank drinking water as our number one infrastructure issue, the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo draft programme is online, and register for the next Taumata Arowai update. 

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 10 June 2021


Register now to get super cheap Water New Zealand Conference & Expo 2021 rates, register for the latest information on Taumata Arowai, read about the latest $185b needed to fix the country's water network and find about our Cultural Significance and Importance of Water module.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 27 May 2021

Mark the date in your diary - Water New Zealand Conference & Expo 2021 earlybird and group registrations open Wednesday, 9 June.

In today's Pipeline; $296M for the creation of new water entities, take a look at our Stormwater Conference 2021 photos and see our latest updates, industry news, and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 13 May 2021

  We're having a great week in Tauranga at the Stormwater Conference, but if you didn't get to join us this time, we've got plenty more events and opportunities coming up over the next few weeks. Our latest Water magazine is now online and there's a pile of interesting and informative reading to keep you well occupied in these cooler days. 

View online 

Pipeline 29 April 2021

Can you believe that Stormwater 2021 is less than two weeks away? Don't miss out on this year's amazing program. 

In this week's Pipeline; a look into the state of New Zealand's water infrastructure; new Inspiring the Future programme to broaden young people's career horizons; and the latest Association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies

View online 

Pipeline 15 April 2021

In this issue of Pipeline: There is still time to nominate a colleague for a stormwater award; register for the next Taumata Arowai update webinar; as the latest Association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 1 April 2021

Hot off the Press - our National Performance Review is out now!  There's still time to nominate colleagues for a Stormwater award and to book a stand at our conference in Tauranga.  If you missed our latest webinar with Taumata Arowai, you can click on the link in this newsletter to catch up.  Have a happy April Fool's Day and a safe Easter break. 

View Pipeline

Pipeline 18 March 2021

Get in quick to get reduced Stormwater rates, register for the latest information on Taumata Arowai, find about our Cultural Significance and Importance of Water module and check out the latest edition of Water. View Pipeline

Pipeline 4 March 2021

In this edition, Modelling Symposium has moved online due to the change in COVID-19 alert levels and the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo - Expo stand sales going live next week. Check out our new guide on Te Mana o te Wai in the water services sector.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 18 February 2021

We hope you're taking care and staying COVID-safe. In this edition, we have more details on our major conferences - the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo and our Stormwater Conference. We hope to see you there. Submissions on the Water Services Bill close on 2nd March. All members are invited to a webinar to discuss our key issues. And if you missed our first Virtual Coffee Catch-up for the year, you can listen to a recording of it and at the same time, register so you don't miss out on future catch-ups. 

View Pipeline

Pipeline 4 February 2021

Hope you’re enjoying these balmy summer weeks. We’ve confirmed the dates for our biggest event – the 2021 Water New Zealand Conference & Expo, and there’s still time to get earlybird rates for Stormwater in Tauranga.

Our draft submission on the Water Services Bill is almost complete and we’ll be running a webinar to get feedback from members later this month. Find out what you can do to help reduce plastic waste by helping promote tap water refilling.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 21 January 2021

Welcome to the first Pipeline newsletter of the year. We hope that you have enjoyed the festive season and are looking forward to the year ahead. 

In this issue of Pipeline: Stormwater 2021 registrations are now live; call for expressions of interest for conference technical committee; upcoming Water Services Bill webinar; New regulator, Taumata Arowai has provided exposure drafts; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 17 December

Today is our final Pipeline for 2020 and what a year it's been! We want to take the opportunity to give special thanks again to our essential workers who kept us safe during COVID-19 lockdowns as well as all our other members – many of you went to great lengths to ensure that New Zealanders continued to get access to water services.  You’ve all done a great job in difficult circumstances.

So wherever you work in the water sector, we hope you take the time to relax and enjoy the festive season with family and friends.

We recently farewelled our Corporate Services Manager, Linda Whatmough. Linda has made a significant contribution over the last 11 years, and we wish her well in her next venture. We also welcome Aatif Osman, our summer intern. Next year will be another busy year. We are looking forward to supporting members with the new regulatory environment. Following referral to Select Committee, the submissions on the Water Services Bill have now been called for. Expo Sites for the Stormwater 2021 Conference are now live. 

 Our next Pipeline will be delivered to your inbox on Thursday, 21 January. Until then, have a wonderful festive season, a Happy New Year and stay safe.

 Meri Kirihimete

Read More 

Pipeline 3 December 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Conference highlights; Congratulations to the 2020 Water New Zealand award winners; latest issue of Water is out now; Taumata Arowai - a whole new perspective on Wai; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View pipeline

Pipeline 19 November 2020

A very big ‘thank you’ to everyone who attended the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo.

In this issue of Pipeline: That's a wrap for the 2020 Water New Zealand Conference & Expo; Water as a Taonga; Fatberg Spills 20,000 Litres of Sewage; as the latest Association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View pipeline 

Pipeline 5 November 2020

We’re looking forward to welcoming all our exhibitors, speakers and delegates to this year’s Water New Zealand Conference and Expo in just over a week.

In this issue of Pipeline: Ngāi Tahu taking Government to court over water rights; Water metering throws up eye-watering results; Mother invents a sustainable solution to wet wipes; as the latest Association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 22 October 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Hybrid conference registrations are available; how to join a Special Interest Group (SIG); Wellington's pipe crisis; asset management data, water law forum; as well as the latest Association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 8 October 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Register for the biggest event on the three waters calendar; Brave blue world screening; Māori worldview climate and carbon webinar; largest solar farm in country; wastewater testing for COVID; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 24 September 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Protecting wastewater professionals from COVID-19; Taumata Arowai Iwi/Māori hui on 3 water's reform; COVID wastewater testing in Brazil; Draft submission on building for climate change programme; Board update; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 10 September 2020

Annual Conference & Expo postponed until the 17-19 November 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Stormwater 2020 award winners announced; download your poster to support Māori Language Week; new Freshwater Regulations; Climate Change research; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 27 August 2020

Don't forget to Vote in the Board Elections - Closing 3 September

In this issue of Pipeline; Annual Conference update, COVID wastewater testing results, 3 waters reform, water sensitive urban design, Māori Language Week posters; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 13 August 2020

Keep track of where you've been. Download the NZ COVID Tracer app.

In this issue of Pipeline; Stormwater conference update, a reminder to bin all wet wipes, Award nominations deadline extended, CoP Asset metadata standards for 3 waters; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 30 July 2020

Latest industry update - new water legislation will transform drinking water safety and delivery.

Also in this issue of Pipeline; passing of Taumata Arowai - the Water Services Regulator Bill; nominations are open for the Water New Zealand Awards, the latest issue of Water is available online; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline

Pipeline 16 July 2020

In this issue of Pipeline; virtually meet our new CEO; nominations for the Water New Zealand 2020 Awards are open; $761 million investment in drinking water infrastructure; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline  

Pipeline 2 July 2020

In this issue of Pipeline; New CEO appointed to Water New Zealand; more sector representation needed in new fast-track bill; hear what Bill Bayfield has to say about the new water regulator; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline  

Pipeline 18 June 2020

In this issue of Pipeline: Water New Zealand conference & expo is all go, see below for incredible earlybird offers; Stormwater conference earlybird registration closes; Taumata Arowai seeks drinking-water treatment equipment suppliers; as well as the latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 4 June

In this issue of Pipeline; read the latest issue of our Water Journal; the winner of our photo competition is announced; Taumata Arowai seeks information; find out more about the upcoming drinking-water online training webinar, as well as industry news, upcoming events and job vacancies.

View Here 

Pipeline 21 May

In this issue of Pipeline; check out our latest media releases; read about AWA's recommendations for Employment & Economic water activities; find out more about detecting COVID-19 in wastewater as well as latest association updates, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline 

Pipeline 7 May

In this issue of Pipeline: register for our weekly webinar series; once-in-a generation opportunity for Water Sector; Improving current Enteric Viral Surveillance through Wastewater Monitoring; as well as the latest updates on COVID-19, industry news, events and job vacancies.

Read More  

Pipeline 23 April

In this issue of Pipeline: join us for a virtual coffee Q/A session; your perfect guide to PPE; preparation for dropping down to alert level 3; as well as the latest updates on COVID-19, industry news, events and job vacancies.

View Pipeline  

Pipeline 9 April 2020

COVID-19 Update – message from Water New Zealand President, Kelvin Hill

As we come to the end of our second week under Level 4 Lockdown, I want to take this opportunity to thank you all for the highly professional way in which you have responded to the challenges we face.

Water is an essential service and vital to the well-being and health of our communities. As water professionals, you have worked collaboratively with colleagues, shared knowledge and supported each other.

In this Pipeline, we aim to provide you with the latest information and links to resources to assist you. We will continue to work hard to ensure we provide the support, information and news you need to help us all through these challenging times.

Please continue to stay safe and don’t hesitate to reach out for information and support.

Kua rere tātou ki te wai kōtahi – We’re in this together

Ngā mihi nui, Kelvin

View Pipeline

Pipeline 26 March

Stormwater 2020, scheduled for May, has been postponed to 15-17 July – we hope we’ll see you there. And check out the most recent performance comparisons of drinking water, wastewater and stormwater – the latest National Performance Review is now on our website.

Stay safe, stay kind, and stay home if you can.

View Pipeline

COVID-19 and your water supply Q & A

Water New Zealand answers key questions about how COVID-19 affects your water supply.

Read more here.  

Pipeline 12 March

Early Bird Registration for Stormwater 2020 closes 19 March!

In this week's Pipeline: find out more about the WIPA continuing professional development programme; learn about the newly formed water group; stay up to date with the latest news on coronavirus as well as industry news, upcoming events and current job vacancies. 

View update.

Pipeline 27 February 2020

Less than two weeks to go to the annual Modelling Symposium and there are still a few spaces available!

In this weeks update: download a copy of our Pressure Sewer National Guidelines; see the results from the Connexis qualifications review; see how you can volunteer in Vanuatu; as well as industry news, upcoming events and job vacancies.

View Update

Pipeline 13 February

In this issue, check out our two most recent submissions - one on the Taumata Arowai - the Water Services Regulator Bill and one on the Urban Development Bill, as well as catch up on industry news, upcoming events and current job opportunities. 

View Update Here

Pipeline 30 January

Welcome to the first Pipeline for 2020! We hope that you have enjoyed the festive season and are looking forward to the year ahead. 

In this issue, you can check out our two recent submissions - one on the Landfill Levy expansion and the other on the Health and Safety at Work (Hazardous Substances) Regulation 2017, as well as catch up on industry news, upcoming events and current job vacancies.

The Climate Change Carbon Zero event is one you do not want to miss - see event details. 

View Issue Here

Pipeline 19 December

Welcome to the final Pipeline for 2019. The team at Water New Zealand would like to thank you for your support over the past year and we look forward to seeing what 2020 brings.

The Water New Zealand office will be closed from 12.00pm on Friday, 20 December and will re-open at 8am on Monday, 6 January.

We wish you a safe and happy holiday season! 

View Pipeline for 19 December here. 

Pipeline 5 December

Would you like to join a new Climate Change and Carbon Special Interest Group? We think there might be quite a number of us in the sector who are keen, especially now that the new Zero Carbon Act has passed into legislation.

Speaking of change, have you seen our video update on the latest drinking water reform proposals? If not, it’s a quick and easy way to catch up. And a big congratulations to Tauranga City Council for their well-deserved success at the NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards. Read on to find out more.

View Pipeline for 5 December here.

Waterways Postgraduate Student Conference

Congratulations to Deborah Paul from Canterbury University who won the Water New Zealand-sponsored People’s Choice award at the recent Waterways Postgraduate Student Conference 2019.

Deborah’s paper looked at the prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in surface drinking waters.

This award comes with an invitation for Deborah to present her winning paper at the Water New Zealand Annual Conference in Hamilton next September. So we look forward to hearing more about this important area of research.

The Waterways Centre for Freshwater Management began in 2009 as a partnership between the University of Canterbury and Lincoln University. It aims to improve the knowledge-driven management of freshwater resources by supporting postgraduate research programmes in the freshwater space.

Pipeline 21 November

It’s likely the Government will get its proposed water reform legislation into the House this side of Christmas. If you want to catch up with where they’re at, take a look at our short video where we summarise the key changes proposed. There’s a link to it further down.

Planning is well underway for the Stormwater Conference and there’s only two weeks left to get your abstracts in, so don’t delay or you will miss out! We’ve also got details for the Young Water Professionals’ Conference in Brisbane – now that’s definitely worth a quick trip to Oz next March.

View Pipeline for the 21 November here. 

Pipeline 7 November

The Government recently announced that it will set up the new drinking water regulator as an independent stand-alone entity. Water New Zealand supports this decision and we look forward to working with Ministers and officials during the passage of the proposed Crown Entity (Water Services) Establishment Bill. Read further to see our media release.

Planning for our 2020 events is now well underway and we’re calling for abstracts for both the Modelling Symposium 2020 and the Stormwater Conference 2020. Details for both events can be found below. 

View Pipeline for 7 November here. 

Pipeline 24 October

Working in the water sector, we are sure you know that the international community has agreed to work towards achieving the goal to ‘make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere by 2030’, under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) global initiative.

WaterAid is an international not-for-profit, determined to achieve this goal. Water New Zealand is pleased to team up with WaterAid and encourages members to participate in achieving the 2030 goal. See below for more information on how you can join in! 

View Pipeline for 24 October online. 

Pipeline 10 October

We're excited to announce the 2019 Water New Zealand award winners from our Conference last month. Be sure to read the article and congratulate these outstanding water professionals.

The Water Industry Professionals Association (WIPA) Continuing Professional Development and Registration programme, jointly established by the Water Industry Operations Group and Water New Zealand, is now taking course enrolments. Course providers can also submit courses to be included as part of the this programme. Find out more below. 

View Pipeline for the 10 October here. 

Pipeline 26 September

The Water New Zealand Conference & Expo held last week in Hamilton was well attended with outstanding delegate numbers and a sold out expo. See below for some of the highlights. Keep an eye out for the conference papers and announcement of award winners.

We hope you can join us for the 2020 Conference to be held at the same time next year!

View Pipeline for 26 September here. 

Water New Zealand Award winners 2019

Join us in congratulating our 2019 Award winners for 2019!

Beca Young Water Professional of the Year 

India Elioart, WSP Opus

The Beca Young Water Professional of the Year Award acknowledges and rewards a young water professional who has made a significant contribution to the water industry and the general community, and who has demonstrated exception achievement in the early stages of their career. 

In recent years, the recipients have had significant working experience, however this year the judges have selected a candidate who is just beginning their career but who has impressed us with her potential and promise. She already exhibits a great deal of determination, both as a consultant and volunteer, to make a positive difference to communities in New Zealand and elsewhere.

With a focus on global issues related to sustainable use and preservation of natural resources, this young professional has been a volunteer with Engineers Without Borders since her days as a Resource Management Engineering student at Canterbury university.

This has involved working on projects in Vanuatu and now managing the Solar Stills Trial in Kiribati – a project which is vitally important locally, and involves working with key partners to build technical and management skills of country partner organisations.

Her vibrant enthusiasm for natural resources and catchment management, particularly in challenging environments, and has made her an exceptional asset to the water resources sector.


TRILITY Young Author of the Year 

Caitlin Cairncross, Tonkin + Taylor - Designing pipelines for low wastewater generation

Caitlin gave a interesting presentation, and her passion for engineering shone through.  Her presentation was well planned and made good use of graphics. The committee congratulate her on conveying complex design project information in an understandable manner.  She responded to questions with confidence.


Hynds Paper of the Year Winner 

Developing a Corrosion Strategy to Protect New Zealand's Largest Wastewater Asset - Stephen Grace, Watercare Services Ltd, Nigel Kay, Jacobs and Shannon Goff, McMillen Jacobs Associates 

An excellent paper that made good use of graphics. The authors set the scene with an introduction to Central interceptor Project and a description of microbially induced corrosion. They go on to describe how the sampling and testing data was used to develop the corrosion protection strategy which was implemented in the hydraulic and ventilation design. The paper highlights that Watercare had the foresight to carry out investigation early, to inform the design and tendering process.


Hynds Paper of the Year runner up

A 'How to Guide' for Securing 35 Year Discharge Consents - Mark Bourne, Watercare Services, Padraig McNamara, Simpson Grierson

This paper describes the value of effective collaboration with stakeholders during the resrouce consent process.The discussion about working with the local iwi was particularly interesting.Overall an informative and well writing paper. The committee congratulate her on being able to convey complex information in an understandable format.


Hynds Presentation of the Year

Stuart Anderson, McConnell-Dowell - Army Bay WWTP Outfall Project - Record Breaking Innovation

An engaging and insightful summary of an extraordinary project undertaken at Army Bay that was professional carried out, with a focus on Health and Safety.The presenter summarised this complex project effectively and the visual presentation was excellent.Questions were answer with flare and confidence.


Jacobs Poster of the Year 

Listening to the reflections in the Dark - Hugh Blake-Manson

This paper had a catchy title and made great use of graphics, including diagrams, graphs, and photos.The distributing sensor technology discussed in the poster offers excellent possibilities to provide efficiencies for both cost and time. An exemplar poster.


Ronald Hicks Memorial Award sponsored by Mott MacDonald 

Martin Neale and Andrew Schollum of Puhoi Stour, Kris Fordham of Civix Ltd., and Nick Brown of Auckland Council, for the paper, presented at the 2018 Stormwater Conference, entitled:

SAFESWIM: A sea change in assessing beach water quality risk

The paper provides an overview of the SAFESWIM programe which greatly improves communication to the public of the risks of swimming at Auckland’s beaches, with consequential improvements in health.SAFESWIM incorporates diverse information souces within risk prediction methods, and uses advances in programming and communication technology to provide real-time information on risk.This world-leading platform has had a great impact already on the public’s view towards the risk of beach use, and has applied a spotlilght to the need for infrastructure investment to reduce pollution. This large innovative project was developed quickly with a wide team.In addition to the 4 awardees, important contributions were made by Surf Livesaving Northern Region, Auckland Regional Public Health Service, University of Auckland, NIWA, Morphum Environmental, DHI, Mott MacDonald, and Translate Digital, with particular acknowledgement due to Craig McIlroy at Auckland Council.

The 4 award recipients have agreed to donate their $1000 prize to Surf Livesaving Northern Region.


IXOM Operations Prize 

Marcus Coley & Leevaai Toremana

The IXOM Operations prize recognises a Water New Zealand member or members for their efforts in solving an operating problem at a wastewater treatment plant.

This year we recognise Marcus Coley from Downer and Leevaai Toremana from Horowhenua District Council for working together to make improvements that would meet the new drinking water regulations introduced earlier this year. Compliance with the revised Drinking Water Standards requires that all drinking water have routine monitoring of total coliforms and enumeration testing for E.coli. Marcus and Levaai reviewed monitoring practices to ensure the council was able to meet the new requirements. They streamlined the process and used an online system to remove anomalies and difficulties in getting results to the lab. Their aim was to develop a system that would provide real-time results and could be monitored and reported on via a dashboard. The result was a Criterion 2A method of data capture which effectively monitors bacteria in drinking water and removes the historical issues.


Site Safe Health & Safety Innovation Award 

Pattle Delamore Partners & Auckland Council

The award this year goes to Pattle Delamore Partners Ltd and Auckland Council for their novel method of reducing hazards to staff - using a drone to collect water quality samples.   

This can be a dangerous occupation, especially in rivers, lakes or offshore, where samples are collected manually from banks, bridges or boats and especially when rivers are in flood. Obvious risks are falling in and drowning or getting hypothermia.   To avoid this, staff at Pattle Delamore Partners Ltd have combined a relatively inexpensive waterproof drone with a lightweight sample sleeves which can collect samples from up to one kilometre away, eliminating the need to approach or go on water. It is particularly beneficial in high risk situations and this simple straightforward initiative is a cost effective, economic solution that is easily accessible commercially to other organisation. Drones are currently being used for water testing at six popular Auckland beaches in support of Auckland Council’s Safeswim programme.


Pipeline & Civil Project Award 

McConnell Dowell  for the installation of the new wastewater outfall at the Army bay Wastewater Treatment Plant

This award goes to McConnell Dowell for the installation of the new wastewater outfall at the Army Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant at Shakespear Regional Park north of Auckland.

The project involved the new wastewater outfall, along with upgrading the existing pump station and a new ultraviolet disinfection facility. The whole system was designed and built to cope with increased wastewater flows and growth in the Whangaparāoa, Ōrewa, Hatfields Beach and Silverdale communities. The new outfall and ancillary buildings had to be built within a pestfree conservation area and protecting endangered wildlife living in the park. McConnell Dowell used new state-of-the-art piping and innovative methodology to complete what was a technically challenging project on time and under budget. While tunnelling the onshore section, it set a world-record for the longest Direct Pipe® drive of almost two kilometres. The new facility was completed in earlier this year. The willingness of all parties to try something not done before has put New Zealand at the forefront of this type of project on the world stage. It was a fantastic example of how to deliver a complex project and is recognised with this award.


Water New Zealand Trainee of the Year 

Jen Rowland, Downer

This year the Trainee of the Year award goes to a person that her employers wish they could clone because of her great work ethic and bubbly personality which has a positive impact on all those around her.

Jen Rowland is part of the Auckland Wastewater Team.  In 2017 she completed the NZ Certificate in Infrastructure Works Level 2 and is currently pursuing Utilities Maintenance Level 3.

She’s come a long way in a very short space of time, moving from service-woman to leading hand within one year.

Jen has a willingness to go the extra mile and delivers exceptional customer service.


5S Society YWP Conference Attendance Prize 

2018 Winner: Caroline Hope, Beca

2019 Winners: Evie Wallace, Beca and Kirsten Woods, Stantec


Best Exhibition Multi-stand 

Xylem New Zealand

Best Exhibition Single-stand

Treadwell Group

Pipeline 12 September

Only six sleeps till our annual conference and expo! We’re very excited to be heading to Hamilton next week and looking forward to catching up with everyone. We’ve got a great line up of speakers and presentations, and this year we’ve got two preconference workshops. It’s not too late to register, but you better get moving!

Thanks to everyone for the great feedback for our Te Wiki o te reo Māori poster. Hope it’s been brightening up your walls, and if not, you can still download it.

Kia pai tonu tō koutou wiki o te reo Māori!!!!

Have a great (ongoing) Māori language week 

View Pipeline for 12 September here. 

Pipeline 29 August

We hope you've booked your registrations for the Annual Conference & Expo and pre-conference workshops in Hamilton in September. We are aware of scam emails selling delegate details to attendees, find out more about this below. 

Financial members are encouraged to participate in the Water New Zealand Board elections and vote for their preferred candidate.

View Pipeline for 29 August here

Pipeline 15 August

We hope you’ve already marked your calendar and booked your tickets for our big September event – our Annual Conference and Expo in Hamilton in September. This year it could even be worthwhile coming a day earlier and taking part in our pre-conference full day workshop looking at the government’s water reforms. These reforms are going to have a big impact on the way we work so come along find out What You Need to Know.

By the way, there’s still time to register for the conference and you don’t need to come to the full conference to attend the workshop. See more details below.

View Pipeline for 15 August online here.

Pipeline 1 August

The first stages of the long-awaited proposals for water sector reform have just been announced by the Government. These signal important and ground-breaking changes to the regulatory environment around drinking water. Take a look at our media release and the Cabinet papers.

And congratulations to Russell Grant for winning our photo competition with a stunning shot of the Timaru wastewater treatment plant ponds. Thanks to all our entries – we received some great photos and hope to use many of them throughout the year.

View Pipeline for 1 August online here. 

Water New Zealand Awards 2019

Don’t delay and miss a chance to show your colleagues how much you appreciate them

Do you have colleagues who have done outstanding work, or made an excellent contribution to the water sector? If so, nominate them for one of Water New Zealand’s awards. Nominations close on August 9 so there’s no time to delay!

Winners will be announced at the Downer Gala Dinner held as part of the Water New Zealand Conference & Expo in Hamilton on Thursday, 19 September 2019.

Feel free to circulate the Awards programme flyer with colleagues.

A list of the awards and criteria can be found here. 

Pipeline 18 July

Don’t miss out on earlybird rates for the must-attend event of the water sector 2019 calendar! Tomorrow’s the last day to get those great earlybird deals for the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo – so don’t delay any longer!

Meanwhile, it’s still not too late yet to register for the Backflow Conference in Christchurch if you haven’t already done so. But you’ll need to move quick for that one too – it’s on in early August.

Many of us are eager to hear what the Government is going to do around three waters reform. See what the review team says about the feedback it’s received from sector experts. And, if you’re a Young Water Professional, you could be in for a great night out in Christchurch next week – read on to see more.

View Pipeline for 18 July here. 

Pipeline 4 July

We’re very disappointed that the Australian Federal Court has ruled in favour of allowing a brand of wipes to be labelled as “flushable”. This is a worldwide problem and the ruling was unfortunate, but it did provide us with another opportunity to get the "don’t flush" message out to New Zealanders - see the news item below. 

And to all young water professionals out there - don’t miss your chance to join the mystery challenge at our conference in September.
Speaking of the conference, there’s still time to get awards nominations in - these awards are a fantastic opportunity to acknowledge the great work of our colleagues. So don’t delay!!

View Pipeline for 4 July here. 

Pipeline 20 June

Happy Matariki, we hope that next week wherever you are in Aotearoa you will have an opportunity to celebrate this season with friends and family. If the skies are clear, see if you can spot the three water connected stars - Waitī watching over our fresh water environment, Waitā surveying our oceans and the food within it, and Waipuna-a-Rangi to welcome our winter ua (rain), ua nganga (hail) and hukarere (snow).

Find out more about Matariki here.

View Pipeline for 20 June here.

Pipeline 6 June

Submissions for the Water New Zealand photo competition close tomorrow. Be sure to get your submissions in to enquiries@waternz.org.nz and keep an eye on our Facebook page to vote for your favourite!

Next week the Annual Conference & Expo draft programme and earlybird registrations will be available through the Conference website.

View Pipeline for 6 June online here.

Pipeline 23 May

It’s time to start thinking about the Water New Zealand awards. You can show your appreciation of your colleagues by nominating them for one of these celebrated achievement prizes. You can even nominate yourself if you think you’re deserving! Over the next few editions of Pipeline we’ll be featuring two of the many awards up for grabs but you can go to the link below to see all of them.

If you’ve updated your Water Safety Plan recently, make sure you register any risks. See more on that below. And finally, don’t forget to send us your favourite water photos. We love seeing them all and there’s a good prize for the winner.

View Pipeline for 23 May online here.

Pipeline 9 May

Once again we’ve had great feedback from those of us lucky enough to attend the Stormwater Conference in Auckland last week – another highly successful event.Thanks very much to all the speakers, exhibitors and attendees. Without you, this would not have been the success it was. And for those of us who didn’t get there – there’s always next year.

View Pipeline for 9 May online here.

Pipeline 11 April

If you can be in Wellington next Wednesday (17 April) you have the opportunity to be part of a special Water New Zealand event. David Sedlak, who’s one of the world’s leading authorities on resilience and the future of water, is visiting from Berkeley University. It’s open to all and will certainly be an occasion you won’t want to miss out on. So make sure you register now.

The Stormwater conference is coming up – there’ll be plenty of great papers and presentations and there's still time to register.

And it’s time to get snapping again. Our annual photo competition is underway and the winner gets free entry to our annual conference and dinner in Hamilton in September – so that makes it worth sending us your favourite water pics, doesn’t it?

View Pipeline for 11 April online here.

Pipeline 28 March

The staff and board of Water New Zealand express our deepest condolences to the people of Christchurch and especially those affected by the tragic events of March 15.

Assalamu alaikum – Peace be with you

View Pipeline for 28 March online here.

Pipeline 14 March

We’ve just published our flagship document, the National Performance Review, which provides the latest performance comparison of our drinking, storm and wastewater assets across the country. See below for our media releases and links to the online report and interactive data portal.

Our Stormwater conference is coming up but there’s still time to register and get your nominations in for the Stormwater and Young Stormwater of the Year awards.
And if you’re looking to get hold of an expo site at our Annual Conference and Expo in September, get in quick – they’re selling fast! Visit www.waternzconference.org.nz for more information.

View Pipeline for 14 March 2019 online here.

Pipeline 28 February

Expo stands for our big event - the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo - go live for booking next week. Keep an eye out for the email notification and get in quick so you don’t miss out. Of course this means that you’ll need to make sure your corporate membership is all sorted and up to date. But that’s not too hard! Contact enquiries@waternz.org.nz for all membership enquiries.

We look forward to seeing you there because it’ll be another great conference.

View Pipeline for 28 February online here.

Pipeline 14 February

Happy Valentine’s Day! Welcome to the second Pipeline for 2019.
Don’t miss out on earlybird rates for the Stormwater Conference, and there’s still time to register for our Modelling Symposium in Wellington. If fitness is your goal, why not have a go at the World Water Day Walk for Water Challenge and help more people get access to safe drinking water? Nearly one in three people in the world don’t have safely managed, clean water. Check below for more on these and other events coming up..

View Pipeline for the 14 February 2019 online here.

Pipeline 31 January

Happy New Year and welcome to 2019! The team at Water New Zealand hope you had a relaxing and enjoyable break.

Our year is already off to a busy start. This jam-packed edition of Pipeline will help bring you up to date with our latest issues and projects – read about our concerns around revised drinking water standards and our draft submission to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into local government funding. There’s also a heads-up on our new photo completion, the opportunity to win a free pass to the Asset Management summit in March – and much more! So happy reading.

View the online copy of Pipeline for 31 January 2019 here.

Pipeline 20 December

View Pipeline 20 December 2018 here.

Pipeline 6 December

View Pipeline 6 December 2018 here.

Pipeline 22 November

View Pipeline from 22 November 2018 here.

Pipeline 8 November

View Pipeline from 8 November 2018 here.

Pipeline 25 October 2018

View Pipeline from 25 October 2018 here.

Congratulations to the 2018 Water New Zealand Conference Awards winners

2018 Water New Zealand Award winners 

Best Exhibition Stand

Single - The Plant People 
Multi - Schneider


5S YWP conference attendance prize – Marcia Ho, Aurecon Group & Caroline Hope, Beca

This year the 5S YWP conference attendance prize was awarded to two recepients; Marcia Ho, Aurecon Group & Caroline Hope, Beca. Marcia and Caroline will both be attending conference's in 2019. 


Ronald Hicks Memorial Award- Nick Marquez, Beca (Sydney)

The Ronald Hicks Memorial Trust Fund was established in 1984 to recognise the contribution that Ron Hicks made to water and wastewater management in New Zealand from the mid-1950s until his death in 1983.

Ron joined the Auckland Metropolitan Drainage Board from the UK as Chief Chemist at the time when the Manukau Sewerage Purification Works was under development.  He became widely respected as an international authority on domestic and industrial wastewater treatment practices, and it was through his efforts from 1957 to 1959 that the NZ Sewage and Industrial Wastes Association was formed-- the forerunner of today’s Water New Zealand.

Ron’s legacy is remembered annually through the Ronald Hicks Memorial Award made to the author(s) of an article or paper considered significant in solving or clarifying sewage treatment or water pollution problems in New Zealand .

The Trustees of the Ronald Hicks Memorial Trust Fund are pleased to announce that the 2018 Award recipient is Nick Marquez of Beca (Sydney) for the paper, presented at the 2017 Annual Conference, entitled:

Challenges in developing a treatment solution for Poly-fluorinated Alkyl Substances—an emerging contaminant

PFAS have very low limits for human and eco-toxicity and have also been hard to reliably sample and analyse.  Only recently has New Zealand discovered the large scope of its own PFAS concerns.

This paper summarises an Australian example of managing and treating water polluted with PFAS, in the context of standards and guidelines that apply in both New Zealand and Australia.  It is comprehensive with a strong analysis of the problems and also a thorough evaluation of treatment trials.  The paper deals directly with the efficacy of treatment options and advances a solution to a water pollution problem in a significant way.  The paper is timely and will be of wide and long-lasting interest in New Zealand.


Water New Zealand Trainee of the Year – Shaun Devlin, Network Operator, Veolia Water

This award goes to Shaun Devlin. Shaun is a Network Operator for Veolia Water where he has been employed for nearly three years.

Last year Shaun was offered the chance to complete the level 4 Retic qualification.  He jumped at the opportunity and has now completed all the block courses and finished 90 percent of his books.

Shaun has been described by his supervisor as a valuable team member and a natural leader. He is a person who can work with anyone in the team without conflict and who always makes sure jobs are completed to a high standard. 


Pipeline & Civil Project Award – CH2M Beca – Watercare Mangere WWTP BNR Upgrade
(Sven Harlos, Watercare, Rob Burchell, CH2M Beca, Greg Wichman, McConnell Dowell, Peter Hodgson, HEB Construction)

The award goes to CH2M Beca for the design and building of the $144 million Biological Nutrient Removal facility at the Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant.  This is a clear example of a cost-effective and well-executed project.

The new facility provides capacity for the treatment plant to service an additional 250,000 people and its advanced processes treat the wastewater more effectively than standard processes by removing greater amounts of nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon. The facility also contributes to the on-going programme to rehabilitate the Manukau Harbour and foreshore.

This was a major, complex and multi-faceted international project that tapped into the best talent in New Zealand as well as significant global technical input.  The design phase involved more than 40,000 hours of effort across four countries and the construction phase engaged more than 2,500 staff and incorporated more than one million hours of work on the site.


Veolia Health & Safety – Watercare, Maintenance Services Networks team
(Richie Rameka – Operations Manager (Reactive), Tony Higgins – Technical Trainer, Mike Grindlay – Field Supervisor – Reactive Water)

This award goes to Watercare for its new technical training centre.  The purpose built centre provides a safe and consistent facility for training its Maintenance Services Networks team which looks after Auckland’s 17,000 kilometres of water and waste water pipes.

The new technical training centre gives employees a place to learn and master the best practices for daily operations without impacting on customers.

The facility includes a training ground set up to closely replicate what field crew would find when working in the streets such as a two-lane road, berms and footpaths, and a residential façade.  It means that staff can receive comprehensive training in a consistent and safe environment.


IXOM Operations Prize- Sharon Danks and the Triangle Road Pumpstation Commissioning Team from Watercare Services – for Triangle Road Pumpstation Commissioning

This award goes to Sharon Danks and the Triangle Road Pumpstation Commissioning Team at Watercare.

The commission of the Triangle Road pumpstation is an important part of Watercare’s ongoing asset improvement programme to meet forecast growth in the north of Auckland.

The commission project of this was extremely successful due to the detailed and rigorous planning undertaken by Sharon Danks and the team involved.

More than 55 staff and Watercare contractors were involved in the preparation and delivery of this work and since commissioning, the Triangle Road Pumpstation has been operating reliably to achieve its design and system support objectives.


Hynds Presentation of the Year - Octavio Perez Garcia (Watercare Services), A Utilities’ Guide to Starting up Anammox

This engaging presentation described the work being undertaken by Watercare to identify, cultivate and develop “home grown” anammox bacteria as part of the wider journey towards energy neutrality. Octavio presented highly technical information in a way that easy to understand. They confirmed the presence of native anammox bacteria, a New Zealand first. This presentation clearly described the process undertaken, the analytical methods, the results and set out path for Watercare moving forward.


Hynds Paper of the Year - Innovative Energy Opportunities for Water Utilities, Lupe Suniula and Laurence Jenner (Watercare Services Limited)

This paper provided an excellent description of the drivers behind energy saving for a large utility. It describes the operation challenges faced by Watercare and looked beyond just plant and equipment into partnership with government and the energy suppliers.

The paper describes how lowering reliance on the electricity grid improves resilience and reliability as well as reducing energy costs.

Technologies for reducing energy use are also identified making this paper a complete and thorough pathway for energy self-sufficiency for larger water utilities.


TRILITY Young Author of the Year Award - Olivia Philpott, (Watercare Services Limited)Responding to Climate Change Challenges facing the Water and Wastewater Industry

A very well written paper on a very topical subject. The paper gives a good description of the issues facing Watercare and how they plan to respond to it. The approach is clearly one which can be used by other utilities who are facing the same issues, albeit in a different geography.


Water New Zealand Poster of the Year - The Real Deal - IoT, Hugh Blake-Manson and L Stephens

This poster gives excellent examples of how the “internet of things” can be applied to improve information that can be used in asset management. The examples provided, although simple, demonstrated how cost savings and timely decisions could be made. The poster give insight and inspiration as to how other uses of technology could be implemented.


Beca Young Water Professional – Troy Brockbank, Stormwater 360

The Beca Young Water Professional of the Year award acknowledges and rewards a young water professional who has made a significant contribution to the water industry and the general community, and who has demonstrated exceptional achievement in the early stages of their career.

The award this year goes to a professional who has shown leadership and passion about combining and applying te ao Māori – or Māori worldview -  to Water Sensitive Urban Design challenges and opportunities.

Troy Brockbank has more than 10 years professional experience in the stormwater industry across engineering consultancies, civil contractors & suppliers. His work is focused around sustainable solutions such as using water sensitive design to promote waterway protection and restoration.

He is currently  design manager at Stormwater 360 and is well known to many of us through his active involvement in the Water New Zealand Stormwater Group.

As well as this, Troy is environment and 3-waters Technical Advisor for Te Rarawa Iwi  where he is involved in the Tāngonge wetland restoration project in Kaitāia.  This is a long term  vision for the Te Rarawa iwi, manawhenua and the local community to restore the wetland.

Troy has been described by colleagues as a professional with passion, acumen, thought leadership and the  ability to put words into action.


Association Medal – Garry Macdonald

The Association Medal this year goes to a member who has made a huge contribution to the water sector and this organisation for more than 40 years. 

Garry MacDonald has had a stellar career and has been a tireless and highly successful promoter of Water New Zealand and New Zealand’s water sector capability as well as promoting Water Sanitation and Health and wellbeing in the Pacific Region.

His achievements are far too numerous to recall here but he is a very worthy recipient of this award. 

Garry is a Past President of Water New Zealand and of Engineering New Zealand (formally IPENZ).  He is an Honorary Life Member of Water New Zealand and a leading member of the NZ 5S Chapter.  He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Water Environment Federation including representing the  Asia-Pacific Region and a period of Chair of the Board’s Global Committee.  He is currently Co Chair of Oxfam.

Garry has been a Principal and Business Director of Beca since 1989 and has led many of New Zealand’s major wastewater projects and scores of smaller projects throughout New Zealand and Australia.

He has written or co-authored in excess of 50 technical papers and presented these papers  to conferences in New Zealand, Australia and the USA.   He has regularly presented papers at the annual WEFTEC Conference.

Many of his papers have been published in prestigious international technical publications and have been recognised for their excellence through a range of professional awards.

It is clear that Garry’s contribution to the Association and to the water sector has been immense – covering technical, governance, leadership, international representation and advocacy.

Congratulations Troy Brockbank winner Beca Young Water Professional of the Year

Busy Day Two at Water Conference

Minister signals changes to water sector

Te wiki o te reo Māori

Water New Zealand is proud to tautoko (support) Te wiki o te reo Māori (Māori language week) 10-16 Mahuru (September), 2018. This year’s theme is Kia Kaha (being strong) and focuses on how we can all make the Māori language strong in everything we do. What better way for our water industry to embrace this theme than to understand the importance of water and understand the words we can use to describe water from a Māori perspective?

Download this poster to pin up in your office or by your desk.

There are key water types with a description of what they mean and includes the importance of Ranginui (Sky Father) and Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) in providing us with precious waiora – life-sustaining water.

He wero - a challenge for you (have some fun with this)

  • Add some te reo Māori into your everyday work...
  • Greet each other with “Kia ora” (Hi/hello)…
  • Have a conversation about what you think when you hear the kupu (word) “wai” (water).
  • Try to use the Māori terms on the poster in place of English ones.

And we can all help with the kia kaha theme by strengthening our understanding of ‘wai’ in Aotearoa.

Water and its mauri (lifeforce) is a taonga, a treasured resource which we should preserve and protect to look after us and the many generations to follow.

"Ko au ko te awa, ko te awa ko au
I am the river, the river is me"

The Department of Internal Affairs - Three Waters Review

The Government is reviewing how to improve the management of drinking water, storm water and waste water (three waters) to better support New Zealand’s prosperity, health, safety and environment. Three waters services are a core responsibility of local councils.

Find out more here.

View the Cabinet paper here.

Stormwater Update

Stormwater Group Committee

 

Congratulations to James Reddish and Troy Brockbank, elected Chair and Deputy Chair respectively, at the recent Stormwater Group AGM; and welcome to new committee members.

Thanks to all outgoing committee members, in particular Mike Hannah and Dean Watts for their Chairmanship roles.


Stormwater Awards

  

Congratulations to the winners of the 2018 awards:

  1. Professional of the Year , Bronwyn Rhynd, CKL
  2. Paper of the Year , CONTINUOUS SIMULATION MODELLING TO SUPPORT HEALTHY WATERWAYS; Jahangir Islam (AECOM), Josh Irvine (WSP Opus), Nick Brown and Nadia Nische (both Auckland Council)
  3. The inaugural Stormwater Innovation Award, Stormwater 360’s “LittaTrap™”.

View the Presentations and Papers from the conference here.

DIA 3 Waters Paper

The Government has released its Cabinet paper Review of three waters infrastructure: key findings and next steps.

The much anticipated paper outlines the government’s “comprehensive programme of reform” to transform the three waters services, strengthen the regulatory regime and start tackling the funding pressures facing the local government sector. Go here  to see the document.

John Pfahlert CEO of Water New Zealand discusses possible wide ranging reforms to our three water services.

The second stage of an extensive government review has just got underway looking at wide ranging reforms to our three water services. Last month a cabinet paper listed extensive problems due to multiple pressures including widespread systematic failures of water suppliers to meet drinking water standards, and concerns about the capability of a system, with many local authorities struggling to respond. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has told stakeholders a new system is still in the "conceptual stage". So what's in the pipeline for reform? And who is going to pay to replace the ageing infrastructure? John Pfahlert is the Chief Executive of the water industry group, Water New Zealand and Marcus Rink is the Chief Inspector of Drinking Water at the UK's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Listen to full interview

Nationwide Havelock North Outcomes Seminars a Great Success

Recently Water New Zealand presented 17 seminars involving over 800 people from Whangarei down to Invercargill on the Outcomes of the Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water. The seminars were hosted by Water New Zealand staff Noel Roberts, Technical Manager and Jim Graham, Environmental Scientist, Principal Advisor Water Quality. Links to the articles published in the local papers are below.

Western Bay of Plenty learning lessons from Havelock North water contamination crisis

Water Supply in the Spotlight - Invercargill

Noel Roberts featured in "Can you taste it? All your water chlorination questions answered"

Christchurch's water is going to be chlorinated, meaning all of the country's major cities now have chlorinated drinking water supplies.

The garden city's move comes less than two months after the damning results from an inquiry into our drinking water were released.

So why do we chlorinate our water, is it a controversial additive like fluoride, and what else do we need to know?

Noel Roberts, technical manager at Water New Zealand, a non-profit organisation focused on the water sector, has answers to the ins and outs of water chlorination.

View the article here.

Water New Zealand in the news: Technical Manager, Noel Roberts on the front page of The Dominion Post, commenting on water wastage. The article also featured data from our National Performance Review Survey

Water is one of New Zealand's most precious commodities, yet we're losing more than 101 billion litres of it every year through leaks and wastage.

The losses equate to almost 18 per cent of the total national supply of 572b litres, and are blamed on ageing and eroding supply systems, household leaks, pipes damaged by underground works, earthquakes and landslides, and metering errors.

The statistics were gathered by Water New Zealand for its 2015-16 national performance review, which compiled data from 50 participating councils, accounting for 90 per cent of the population. A review of 2016-17 is due out next month. Read full Article

Water New Zealand in the News: Councils grappling with need to upgrade storm water systems after sewage contamination fears at Kiwi beaches


View the full article here.

Quake Centre Projects

Water New Zealand attended the annual partner workshop on the 5th December. A number of interesting projects have or are nearing completion that members may be interested in, some of these projects are :

  • Open Slat for Seismic Resilience Evaluation of Buildings – A tool for assessing the expected safety, damage and recovery of modern buildings
  • UC Triaxial Permeameter – A tool for testing the seismic performance of earth dams including seepage. (needed an explanation)
  • Characterisation and screening of New Zealand stopbank networks – To inform knowledge gaps, relative service and condition levels, risk exposure, management and policy needs.
  • Three Waters Resilience Guideline – A Beca project, finalising first draft now.
  • Implementation Framework for improved renewals planning – An Opus project, A guidance document to improve pipeline renewals planning for gravity wastewater pipelines through evidence based decision making.

New Projects

  • National Pipe Data Portal – aims to collate and share data on a national basis in order to improve the models used to determine the useful life of pipes and the risk profile of the 3 waters networks across the country.
  • Share wave Velocity – defining a NZ approach as opposed to some of the undesirable practises being used.
  • Earthquake Ground Motion for Engineering Practises in NZ – NZS1170.5 defining a NZ methodology.
  • Valentine’s Day Study – CCTV study in to how the repairs are holding up in New Brighton. Following the earthquake that occurred in 2016.

For more information view the latest Pipe Renewals Project update, visit the Quake Centre Online Resources Portal http://resources.quakecentre.co.nz/3-waters/ or contact Noel.Roberts@waternz.org.nz

Workforce capability strategy project

Water New Zealand will be kicking off a project in 2018 to develop a sector workforce capability strategy and we’d like your input.

The sector currently has an aging workforce and limited succession planning. We need to attract people into the sector and retain them but, in general, the sector is not as attractive or competitive as other sectors that compete for similar skill sets. The sector’s capability needs are also changing in response to tougher environmental standards, greater assurances required around public health and safety, as well as efforts to lift the bar on asset management practices across the country. Some organisations are tackling these issues and there is an opportunity to share these learnings through greater industry collaboration. Vocational education and training will need to evolve in response to all of this.

The project will explore these challenges and develop a plan of action to resolve them. This will first involve understanding where the sector is now (develop a workforce profile) and how it is changing (scan of the issues and trends affecting the sector). There is already a lot happening around the sector on capability but there is not yet a clear picture of all the work. A stock take of relevant initiatives will be undertaken.

Details and timing for the project will be developed early in 2018. In the meantime, please get in touch if you are interested in this work, can contribute in some way (in-kind or funding), or just want to let us know about initiatives you are aware of that we should take into account.

The contact for this project is charlotte.cudby@waternz.org.nz

Association Updates as of 7 December

Shared Services Submission

The Association made a brief submission to a proposal circulated by Waipa and Hamilton City for a proposed shared services arrangement. We suggested the Councils were not being bold enough by embracing the establishment of an asset owning CCO.

Stormwater Group

The Stormwater Conference fielded more than 80 abstracts in the preliminary call. The conference committee will be reviewing them over the next couple of weeks, with authors advised of acceptance prior to Christmas. There will be 22 exhibition sites available at the Queenstown venue. Registrations will open at the end of January. Stormwater 360 has again committed to premier sponsorship of the event for 2018.

Charlotte Cudby has assisted the SW policy sub-committee with developing a “policy register” which identifies upcoming policy (or other documentation) for review. This is accessible in the SW group dropbox and will be regularly updated.

Modelling Group

The call for abstracts for the Modelling Symposium in March has been circulated. The technical guidelines for Wastewater Network modelling have been revised. The guidelines are currently being formatted and will be available on the WNZ website shortly.

Backflow Group

The 6 December meeting of the Backflow Committee is being held at Hydroflow premises in Auckland, where the group will be undertaking a valve-testing scenario to evaluate the current NZ testing procedures and benchmark against the Australian testing procedures. This arises from the group’s participation on the AS/NZ Standards Review committee.

Young Water Professionals

A site visit was recently held at Watercare’s Mangere Biological Nutrient Removal (BNR)facility. Hampered by the weather, only 10 people attended.

The Wellington group is planning a site visit the Wainuiomata WWTP, hopefully before Christmas.

The inaugural meeting of the new YWP Central group is planned for the New Year.

Pacific Island Group

Discussions are underway over the establishment of a group to provide a forum for discussion on Pacific Island Issues. Jim Graham attended a meeting at MFAT where a variety of groups involved in aid and development works in the Pacific were present. The work is very much at the early stages.

Water Services Managers Group

The Association ran a very successful 2-day meeting of the group in Christchurch in November, with over 40 water service managers in attendance. Very positive feedback has been received. It is pleasing to note increased interest in the Group, in particular new membership of the NZ Defence Force who manage their own onsite water and wastewater facilities.

Water Utilities Association/Service Providers Forum

The final meeting of the year was held in Wellington on 23 November. Staff briefed attendees on progress with the industry led projects we were asked to prioritise in 2016. Members present agreed that the Forum was useful, but should be targeted to a dialogue on strategic issues. They asked for external parties to be brought in to address the Group as required. They want the Terms of Reference to reflect the strategic nature of the group, and the CEO was tasked with completing that work prior to the next meeting. The Group agreed that in future the Association and SPF would meet twice a year. The members did not agree that we should restrict invitations to named senior individuals, noting that if the agenda is compelling the right people will attend.

MfE’s Urban Good Management Practices Working Group

MfE has established an urban good management practices working group to support implementation of the NPS-FM and potentially inform future policy direction. A first meeting of the working group was held in October and involved several WNZ members. Charlotte Cudby has subsequently been invited to the working group to represent WNZ and will work with the members involved to co-ordinate input.

International Water Services Flushability Group- IWSFG

On behalf of the New Zealand wastewater sector, WNZ has signed the MoU for voting rights with the International Water Services Flushability Group (IWSFG).

The objective of the IWSFG is to develop and maintain clear standards that define suitable criteria for products that can be flushed down toilets and drains, and labelled flushable, to protect water collection and transfer systems, treatment plants, their workers, and the environment.

This objective is supported by Publicly Available Standards (PAS) documents setting out the test protocols and other information supporting and referenced in the standard.

http://iwsfg.org/

Waste Stabilisation Ponds: Design and Operation available for download now

Water New Zealand is happy to provide the long awaited Good Practice Guide for Waste Stabilisation Ponds: Design and Operation. We believe this guideline will be of great value to the industry and likely to be a long serving legacy document referred back to by members for many years to come. This is a document the authors can be proud of and Water New Zealand would like to acknowledge the many hours of dedicated effort the authors put in to creating this document.

It is Water New Zealand’s intention to hold a number of provincial workshops in the first quarter of 2018 explaining the content and thinking behind this guideline.

View the documents at www.waternz.org.nz/wsp

NZ lifelines Council

Noel Roberts attended the New Zealand Lifelines Council meeting on the 24th November, this was a quick meeting as a number of us were also at the lifelines forum at the beginning of the month along with 170 other attendees.

A number of items were discussed including the September release of Infrastructure Vulnerability Assessment project document and the interdependency tables within.

Attached is a list of completed Lifelines projects from around New Zealand. Feel free to contact Noel for more information.

New Zealand Utilities Advisory Group (NZUAG) Inc Meeting Update

Tony Hale, Waipa District Council is Water New Zealand's WSMG rep for NZUAG has provided the following update from the NZUAG meeting held 22 November in Auckland.

Welcome to the NZUAG Inc website. The New Zealand Utilities Advisory Group Incorporated is a joint consultative group of road and rail owners/managers and utility companies working together to create outcomes to benefit all road users and communities.

  • AGM business conducted with Chairperson report & financial summary. Promoted need to encourage a more diverse board membership & importance of feeding back information to our membership organisations
  • Previous minutes accepted
  • The following are items discussed
    • Code review next year and its launch at RIMS conference, how to promote and use of technology. Plan is to conduct seminars
    • RIMs conference – went through draft programme
    • Presentation from “before u dig” , they noted a lack of willingness from Council to share their 3 waters asset info ?, interesting observation and backed up by their data. Could be worth following up with WSMG ?
    • KPI – feedback from survey monkey, interesting data received although at this stage more questions than answers. Some confusion as to who received the request, intention was to go via CE’s . Further analysis to take place
    • Kiwi rail – update on site access systems (presentation to come out with the minutes)
    • RCA forum – need to continue promoting the road corridor is property to property not just the black stuff
    • Membership – needs a nudge at the RIMS
    • Location of services – again seems to be various companies seeking to get competencies/training standards established. NZUAG unsure of its role but will remain actively interested

Association Updates as of 23 November

Land and Water Forum Update

Attached is a letter from the Chair of the Forum to the incoming Government. For anyone interested it gives you an update on Forum thinking.


Pipeline Workshops Completed

The last of 4 regional workshops on the various work streams being undertaken by the association around pipeline resilience were completed last week in Queenstown and Christchurch. In total 140 Association members attended these. Our thanks to the 6 industry presenters who gave freely of their time to make the presentations.


Conference Papers Online

The papers from the September Water New Zealand conference are now available online here.


Growing Up in NZ

CEO John Pfahlert met recently with staff at Auckland University to discuss their interest in conducting research to examine whether there are is an association between children who grow up drinking treated water versus non treated water and their general health status. The Growing Up in NZ program follows 6000 children born in the upper North Island DHB’s throughout their lives to examine their health and wellbeing.


Young Water Professional Group Expanding

The Association has called for expressions of interest to see if there is interest in establishing a YWP group in the the Central North Island, based in Tauranga.

The Young Water Professionals groups are for young water industry professionals with an interest in the water space. Membership is free if you are in the early stage of your career or if you are in full-time tertiary study. The primary objective of the groups is to provide regionally based interaction between young water professionals and encourage younger water professionals and students to become more involved in the water industry.

We will meet on a regular basis and discuss all things water and have some fun activities. YWP groups are well established in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and we will be able to share ideas with them and others around the country. It will be a great opportunity for you to gain connections in the water industry and learn from your peers.

At this stage our aim is to gauge how many young professionals we have in the Bay and to better understand interest in attendance at events. If we have enough interest we will kick off in the New Year with a catch-up to discuss the formation of the new YWP group with some drinks and nibbles.

Register your interest with Coral-Lee Ertel at Western Bay of Plenty District Council via email at coral-lee.ertel@westernbay.govt.nz by Christmas.

Feel free to forward this email on to anyone who may be interested in joining.

For more information on the Young Water Professionals groups, see the Water New Zealand website.


IANZ

CEO John Pfahlert met with Geoff Hallam at IANZ in Auckland recently to better understand the process for accreditation of laboratories involved in testing water samples for compliance with the drinking water standards.


Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment

CEO John Pfahlert met with Simon Upton (the new PCE) this week to brief him on Association activities and the likely implications of the Havelock North Drinking Water Inquiry.


Science NZ Conference

CEO John Pfahlert attended the 25th anniversary conference of the establishment of the Crown Research Institutes in NZ. There were a number of presentations on current work being undertaken at CRI’s and some forward looking talks about where the CRI’s are headed in research.


Waterways Centre Conference

Every year the Waterways Centre for Freshwater Research (a JV between Lincoln and University of Canterbury) holds a one day conference where the results of Masters and Doctoral students research is presented. Water NZ was a sponsor of this year’s event and CEO John Pfahlert attended. There is some great research being done, and companies looking to recruit bright young graduates should consider sending people to recruit students. Many are doing work directly relevant to 3 waters operations. Attendance is free. www.waterways.ac.nz


Submission for Water New Zealand on the Proposed Waikato Shared Waters Management Company

Water New Zealand is seeking feedback on the draft Submission for Water New Zealand on the Proposed Waikato Shared Waters Management Company . Please provide feedback to Charlotte Cudby by Thursday, 16 November.

E: charlotte.cudby@waternz.org.nz
P: 04 495 0893

HNWI - Issue 3 Background Paper; Issues 8, 9, and 10 Discussion Paper

Please find below:

  1. A background paper for Issue 3.
  2. A discussion paper for Issues 8, 9, and 10 and Appendix 1

June Report and Recommendations

View the Interim Report and Recommendations dated 14 July 2017.

Government Inquiry into Drinking Water

The next stage of the Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water is about to begin. Stage 2 will be the interesting stage for the industry as a whole as it explores the systemic issues nationally and what can be done to reduce the chances of another contamination event occurring elsewhere.

24 key Issues have been raised by the counsel assisting the inquiry. Issues 1 - Current Safety Havelock North Drinking Water and 2 - Drinking Water Partnerships and Collaboration will be discussed on the 27 th – 29 th June, with the remaining issues 3 – 24 being discussed in the week beginning 7 th August

A fact sheet was collated by Water New Zealand on issue 2 through a collaborative process involving a cross section of members, including Water Suppliers, Consultants and Industry Experts.

Other fact sheets and full list of stage 2 issues can be viewed on the DIA web site

https://www.dia.govt.nz/Government-Inquiry-into-Havelock-North-Drinking-Water

Evidence Prepared for Water New Zealand for submission to Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking-Water

Attached is a background paper prepared for the Association by Steve Hrudey. It has been tabled with the Havelock North Drinking Water Inquiry as a background paper. Members may use this document as they see fit.

View the paper here.

Editorial: More answers and accountability needed

One would not blame Ian Inkson if he felt a certain amount of frustration as news of the gastro crisis in Havelock North was unfolding last year.

For those of you who don't know, Ian Inkson was a public health officer who wrote a letter 15 years ago to warn the Hawke's Bay Regional Council and Hastings District Council of concerns he had over the potential contamination of Brookevale Bore 2.

We featured a story on the front page of the paper yesterday in which Mr Inkson spoke about the fact that he did not receive a reply from either council.

So when it began emerging in August last year that a large number of people (5500 in the end) were very ill, Mr Inkson could have been forgiven for thinking: "I told you so." He told us this week that the inquiry, which released its findings last week, is "justice being served".

In his email of August 8, 2002, Mr Inkson said he wished to "lay a complaint about a bore which in my interpretation contravenes rule 3 (P 150) of the proposed plan. This is in that it is potentially allowing leakage of contamination from the surface down into the aquifer through an insecure control cable duct".

He went on to ask what the regional council proposed to do about the situation. Neither council has a record of the email.

Now, there is no question that emails do go missing at times and this is especially true in big organisations, but the tone of Mr Inkson's email should have been enough to indicate that urgent action was warranted.

The sad thing is that if action had been taken following the email, other insecure bores would have been discovered.

Let's hope the second phase of the inquiry provides a whole lot more answers to stop this happening again.

There also needs to be some accountability.

- Hawkes Bay Today

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503462&objectid=11857182&ref=rss

By Andrew Austin

  • Email
  • Print

Havelock North Stage 1 Report Released

Please find a copy of the Stage 1 Report of the Havelock North Drinking Water Inquiry here.

Drinking water Management Current Issues Update 7 – Boil water notices

March 2017

One of the quick wins that has come out of the Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water evidence, is the need for planning around boil water notices. It was identified by the Hawkes Bay District Health Board, the Drinking Water Assessors and Hastings District Council that better planning and preparedness around boil water notices would have saved time in notifying residents of the need to boil water.

One of the roles confirmed by the Inquiry is that it is the water suppliers which are the agency responsible for issuing a boil water notice. Drinking water assessors and the Medical Officer of Health can recommend a boil water notice be issued, and in many cases would provide input into water utilities making the decision to issue a boil water notice. There are also situations where the need to issue a boil water notice is an obvious conclusion and the water utility can act promptly and hopefully mitigate any illness from occurring in the community, i.e. a broken drinking water main where waste water is known to have entered.

If a health emergency is declared then the Medical Officer of Health powers escalate beyond providing recommendations to water utilities, to instructing water utilities to carry out actions.

The trigger for a water utility to issue a boil water notice should be identified in the Water Safety Plan or a document the WSP refers to. A significant part of a boil water notice plan is the communication methods used to notify the consumers.

Not only is there a need for having a prepared boil water notice, there also exists the need for:

  • a “Do Not Drink” notice typically used for chemical contamination
  • a “Do Not Use” notice, these are rare and would be used where a contamination could be dangerous if water contacts skin, lungs or eyes.
  • Where to find more detailed advice and FAQ on things such as washing teeth, coffee machines, ice and dishwashing can also be prepared in advance of a contamination event.

There were a number of recommendations and thoughts that have come from the Inquiry and its’ line of questioning:

  • Recommended best practice is to provide bottled water to the elderly as it is considered a health hazard for them to lift large pots of hot water.
  • Use the council health protection officers to contact food outlets (24/7) – the same people who issue the hygiene certificates.
  • Find the aged health care contacts before hand – they are the best people to contact the elderly - which social media probably won’t get to.
  • Include boarding schools when hotels are contacted.
  • Schools have limited ability to wash hands before eating; therefore the risk of secondary contamination is higher. Unless an emergency situation is declared it’s the schools board of trustees who make the call to close the school, hence time needs to be allowed to update them on the facts so they can make a call. Use the Ministry of Education to get hold of the school board of trustee’s contacts; the same Ministry of Health contact goes for early child care facilities as well.
  • Record multi agency meeting actions, especially delegated tasks i.e. who is contacting rest homes.
  • Use all communication sources available. It was recognised that mail drops are not likely to be useful initially but would likely play a part in updating as the situation progresses and the boil water notice is removed.
  • Contact Dialysis patients directly.
  • Create a phone tree contact list. Consider other ethnic communities where English isn’t their first language.
  • Black pages – this where prepared hidden web pages are created on a Water Utilities web site and the relevant page is quickly enabled when required.

A pre mortem is lot easier and less stress to carry out than a post mortem!

Attached is the American Drinking Water Advisory toolbox provided via Peter Wood - Central North Island Drinking Water Assessor Technical Manager, it is a great document for getting the jump boil water notice preparation.

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water NZ

Drinking Water Management Current Issues - Update 6

Interesting findings to date from the Government Inquiry

January 2017

The Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water (stage one, Issue 8 session) (future actions to ensure a safe drinking water for Havelock North) occurred on the 12 th and 13 th December 2016.

The remaining stage one issues (legal responsibilities; prior knowledge; source and cause; possible person or organisational failure; facts and incident management response; contingency planning and appropriate responses) starts on the 30 th January 2017 and is expected to take 2–3 weeks.

Issue 8 was brought forward to December due to Hastings District Council's need to plan for treatment options in order to meet the expected summer demand. Since the contamination event, Havelock North has been supplied via a cross connection from the Hastings water supply scheme, but this is not expected to be able to cope with peak summer demand. The proposed solution is to install a treatment process of cartridge filter / UV and chlorine dosing on to the Brookvale Road bore 3; this is the newest of the 3 bores and was not in service last year. The current planned commissioning date for this is the 2 nd week in February.

This treatment process will provide for 5 log removal, recognising that 5 log treatment could be potentially more than is required to meet the minimum requirements as set out in the DWSNZ. However the driver for Council is to comply with the standard from day one rather than waiting for the results of 12 months of cryptosporidium monitoring. There is also a need to provide confidence to residents that the water supply is safe, and these considerations outweigh the costs of a cartridge filter installation for Hastings District Council.

It is also proposed to install online turbidity and conductivity instruments on the bore pre-treatment to provide additional real time monitoring and protection. Hastings District Council are currently considering if this should be applied to all bores in their region.

Hawkes Bay Regional Council withdrew the pending prosecution against Hastings District Council. Before a prosecution proceeds there are two factors that need to be taken into account, the first being that a prosecutor is satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction. The second is whether the public interest requires a prosecution. The second factor was seriously questioned during the Inquiry's first day in December, resulting in the withdrawal of the prosecution and issuing of an infringement notice instead.

A vacuum test was carried out on the Brookvale Road bore heads to see if they would hold a vacuum. The theory being that if a vacuum could be held this would indicate that the bore casing does not have a hole in it above the static water level. The vacuum test identified that the cable glands required some maintenance in order maintain the bore head integrity.

Brookvale Road bores 1 and 2 are housed in underground chambers, similar to other water supply bores in New Zealand. Brookvale Road bore 3 is newer and located above ground. Hastings District Council has been working on raising the bore heads in the region above ground and doing away with the chambers. One of the checks that has been carried out to ascertain the integrity of the Brookvale bores 1 & 2 chambers was to turn off the chamber sump pumps and flood the chamber to see if they hold water

A number of water supplies including Hastings District Council have moved away from relying on a presence / absence E.coli sample taken every few days as per the minimum requirement of the DWSNZ, to a numerated E.coli sample every day. This is still a 100ml sample as a representation of up to many mega litres that could have passed through that bore in that day. One of the recommendations from the December Inquiry session was to carry out 2 litre E.coli samples rather than a 100ml sample. I am unsure on how the logistics of this are working out for the laboratories, but I will let you know when I find out.

Fluorescent dye trace testing has been carried out in the surrounding area with the bores running to waste. There have been some challenges with the online detection instrument, but the preliminary results indicate that there is a potential path between a pond that occasionally occurs in the nearby Mangateretere stream and Brookvale Road bore 1. This potential path could take only a few days for the water to transport from the pond to the bore. More information is expected on this prior to the Inquiry resuming on the 30 th January.

Sheep faeces have been confirmed as the most likely source of the campylobacter.

We will be providing further updates as the Inquiry progresses.

Minute No. 4: Directions for Hearing into Issue 8 (What Actions or Further Actions Should be Taken to Ensure the Safe Supply of Drinking Water to Havelock North

View the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Drinking Water under the Inquiries Act 2013 in the Matter of Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water - Minute No. 4: Directions for Hearing into Issue 8 (What Actions or Further Actions Should be Taken to Ensure the Safe Supply of Drinking Water to Havelock North - here.

Decision of the Inquiry Panel on Application for Postponement 22 November 2016

View the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Drinking Water under the Inquiries Act 2013 in the Matter of Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water - Decision of the Inquiry Panel on Application for Postponement 22 November 2016 here.

Havelock North Inquiry

By now most industry participants will be aware the Government has established an Inquiry into the Havelock North drinking water incident. The Inquiry will report in two stages. The first stage will be an examination of what went wrong in Havelock North. The second stage will be to report on what systemic changes, if any, are required to the system of drinking water management to ensure such an event is not repeated. The Association will be involved in both stages.

The Association has established a small review group of industry participants to assist staff in responding to the Inquiry. The Association has decided not to submit Evidence in the first stage of the Inquiry, as it is pur view is there is nothing significant we can contribute to investigating what went wrong.

However, Noel Roberts and I will attend the Inquiry in the week beginning 30 January 2017 in Hastings. We will report back to the membership via Pipeline as the Inquiry progresses (note there has been a two month delay to the start of the Inquiry due to court action between two of the parties).

Parties who wish to submit documents of fact to the Inquiry are required to lodge these with the Secretariat to the Inquiry. These have been posted to the Inquiry website by the secretariat at: https://www.dia.govt.nz/List-of-issues-for-Stage-One. The Water NZ website will also be a source of information, especially media reports: http://www.waternz.org.nz/havelock

Evidence to the Inquiry will not be placed on either the DIA website or the Water New Zealand website until it is presented at the Inquiry. However, shortly after its presentation it will be posted by the Secretariat to the DIA website, along with a transcript of what was said. This will cover cross examination etc.

It’s likely that the Inquiry will produce their first report into what went wrong in the first quarter of 2017.

If anyone would like to know more about what evidence we are planning to call in Stage two of the Inquiry, or about the general approach being taken by the Association, please contact John Pfahlert at ceo@waternz.org.nz or call 021 150 9763

Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water Core Bundle of Documents – Volume 1

View the Government inquiry into Havelock North drinking water core bundle of documents - volume 1.

Minute No. 3: Preliminary Matters and Initial Hearing 14 November 2016

View the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Drinking Water under the Inquiries Act 2013 in the Matter of Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water - Minute No. 3: Preliminary Matters and Initial Hearing 14 November 2016 here.

Information brief on behalf of Water New Zealand Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water

This brief is designed to provide some contextual information about the operation of the water industry to parties of the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Drinking Water Inquiry. It details some of the activities of Water New Zealand as the representative body for the industry, the extent of engagement by Councils in New Zealand with Water New Zealand and the extent of involvement of staff at Hastings District Council with various groups which the Association operates.

View the document here.

Drinking-water Management Current Issues Update 5

Update 5 – Monitoring chlorine demand - November 2016

The purpose of these updates is to create a knowledge environment where all members can access the best information to plan, operate and maintain drinking water networks and generally accepted best practices.

There is more to chlorine dosing than just adjusting the chlorinator once to maintain at least 0.2 mg/L as it leaves the treatment plant, there are many factors which can influence the dose of chlorine required. By maintaining the optimum chlorine dose there is the opportunity to make your work easier by potentially making savings in the amount of chlorine required; reducing the number of chlorine odour complaints, as well as potentially get an early warning of changing conditions within the water supply system.

Chlorine Demand

Chlorine is one of the more reactive chemicals used in water supplies and is consumed by reaction with inorganic and organic contaminants in water. The amount of chlorine destroyed by these substances is known as the chlorine demand. Most reactions with chlorine will occur within the first few minutes of contact, which is why the FACe (Free Available Chlorine equivalent) residual is measured after 30 minutes from being dosed, i.e. the outlet of the contact tank or treated water reservoir.

The chlorine chemical reaction rate increases with increasing temperature. If the chlorine dosing is operated to achieve a chlorine residual at the ends of the distribution system, then during cold wintery conditions the chlorine residual leaving the treatment plant can be lower than in warm summer conditions. Winter also tends to have longer retention times in distribution reservoirs, so the desired residual leaving the plant can only be determined by trial and error through FAC tests carried out at many parts of the distribution system.

Some of the factors that can reduce the amount of free available chlorine are:

  • UV light, water exposed to sunlight, or the UV plant was installed downstream of the chlorine dosing point.
  • Aeration, water cascading over a weir, top feed reservoirs. This effect will vary with flow rate.
  • Changing raw water conditions, dissolved metals which the coagulation process isn’t removing
  • Non-optimum coagulation and flocculation processes where dissolved natural organic molecules, such as humic and fulvic acids (colour) are passing through the processes. The oxidation of these compounds by chlorine is often slow can lead to their partial disintegration and the production of compounds which micro-organisms are able to use as a food source. The presence or production of these compounds in water entering distribution systems can enhance the regrowth of micro-organisms, particularly if there is little or no FAC. See DPB’s further down.
  • A possum climbed up past the grill of reservoir overflow pipe and fell in.
  • A leaky concrete seal on reservoir roof, effect of this is typically seen in the first rain event after a dry spell.

Where 3 and 30 minute online chlorine analysers have been installed, the difference between these two readings is a good indicator of what oxidisation is occurring after dosing hence how well the treatment process is removing contaminants. This difference can also be identified by calculating the dose rate of chlorine being applied and comparing to the chlorine leaving the treatment plant.

Where chlorine residuals are monitored in the distribution system a similar comparison can be made between the water leaving the treatment plant and the water passing through the distribution network. That possum might be there consuming some of the chlorine but still leaving enough of a chlorine residual to mask any potential E.coli detection.

Keeping a record of manual chlorine readings from the distribution system and being aware of the typical seasonal differences from source to distribution system, provides additional useful information. Where a larger than normal difference is detected it should be a prompt to have a closer look before it escalates into an issue.

Chlorine dosing control

A number of factors need to be taken into account when establishing a chlorine dose rate at the treatment plant. Generally, the first and most basic requirement is to achieve a minimum of 0.2 mg/L FACe after 30 minutes contact time. In many cases, the chlorinator is set to match this.

If the water has a low turbidity and colour, and a free chlorine residual is maintained, consumers can be reasonably confident that most (if not all) pathogenic organisms will have been destroyed after a 30-minute period. Some pathogens (eg, oocysts of the protozoa Cryptosporidium) are more resistant to chlorine and require removal by filtration or inactivation by another disinfection system, but chlorination is still regarded as the most appropriate key defence against contamination by bacteria and viruses.

The characteristics of the raw water source needs to be taken into account when the method of chlorine dose control is being selected. Waters in which the chlorine demand and the flow through the plant are almost constant can be chlorinated adequately by manual control. Where the water quality is fairly constant, but where the flow rates change, a proportional flow controller is necessary.

Waters in which both the chlorine demand and the flow rate change, require an automated system with the dosing controlled by measurement of the FAC residual in the water. If unattended, neither manual nor proportional flow controls can alter their dose rates to match changes in raw water quality, hence this is the more failsafe option but is typically also the more expensive and complicated.

Storage issues with hypochlorite that are not widely known

The storage of high concentration hypochlorite solutions (sodium and calcium hypochlorite solutions, “hypo and HTH”) for extended periods of time should be avoided. At high concentrations, these chlorine solutions decompose with the production of chlorate and perchlorate. Sufficient chlorate can be produced for it to be detectable in the treated water. Chlorates are likely to be looked at as part of a national study next year; onsite hypochlorite production where the product is used within a few days is typically ok when a salt with a low bromide content is used.

Dry calcium hypochlorite is a powerful oxidant and is dangerous if mishandled. It should not be allowed to come into contact with heat, combustible materials, oils or reducing agents, and spillages should be washed away with large amounts of water. Follow the instructions on the containers.

Disinfection by-products (DPBs)

New Zealand’s foremost concern, like other countries, is to provide microbiologically safe water. The microbiological quality of the water must never be sacrificed just to minimise disinfection by-product formation. This is not to say that efforts should not be made to keep disinfection by-product concentrations to a minimum.

The effects from a microbiological contaminated water supply are more immediate, typically 1 – 10 days, whereas the effects from disinfection by-products from drinking water are long term at an excess cancer risk of one in a 100,000 over a 70 year period at the maximum allowable values specified in the Drinking Water Standards New Zealand - hence the statement in the paragraph above.

DPB concentrations increase with increasing disinfectant concentration. The best-characterised relationship is between Trihalomethane (THM) production and chlorine dose. There is a moderately steep increase in THM production as the chlorine dose is increased, until sufficient chlorine has been added to meet the full chlorine demand of the water. At doses beyond this value there is little increase in THM concentration as the chlorine concentration is increased.

The influence of pH on the concentration of DPBs depends upon the category of DPBs in question. Within the pH range of typical drinking-water, increasing the pH (up to pH 9.5) increases the concentrations of THMs; whereas the concentrations of trihaloacetic acids increase as the pH is decreased (maximum dichloroacetic acid production occurs at pH 7.0–7.5.

The production of DPMs from organic matter is not instantaneous. The production of THMs, for example, may continue for weeks, although, at typical pH and temperature values, greater than 80 percent of the final concentration may be formed within 48 hours. Concentrations of THMs in a distribution system are therefore expected to be greater than the concentrations in the water leaving the treatment plant.

The holding times in service reservoirs before the drinking-water enters the distribution system will have an influence on the DPB concentrations in the reticulated water; the longer the holding time in the reservoir, the higher the disinfection by-product concentrations entering the distribution system. However, it has been observed that haloacetic acids tend to exhibit higher concentrations near the treatment plant

There is a lot more to chlorine dosing than just ensuring it’s being dosed!

Other useful related documents are:

Water New Zealand – Good Practice Guidance Note on the Supply of Chlorine for use in Drinking-Water Treatment.

http://www.waternz.org.nz/Attachment?Action=Download&Attachment_id=1554

Ministry of Health - Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality Management for New Zealand, which was the source for some of the information in this update.

http://www.health.govt.nz/publication/guidelines-drinking-water-quality-management-new-zealand

A Water NZ document on Chlorine Emergency Response Plans will be on our website in the near future.

Future technical updates are planned for:

  • Online Monitoring and compliance
  • GNS explanation of age dating process
  • Educating senior staff and Councillors Community education
  • Backflow
  • The national inquiry information as it unfolds

Interaction with other agencies to ensure we have safe water supplies and the roles of respective agencies; who takes a lead in these situations?

The following public forum has been created for members to provide comments and their experiences. We have wiped the forum responses and started again due to spamming. Please use the following login and password.

Log in: Water New Zealand
Password: WaterNZ1

http://forum.waternz.org.nz/index.php?sid=e9fdf326a4f37e3bfbd76b1321837aa4

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water New Zealand
noel.roberts@waterNZ.org.nz
04 4950892

Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water: Minute No 2: Stages of the Inquiry and processes for Evidence

View the Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water: List of Issues : Minute No 2: Stages of the Inquiry and processes for Evidence here.

Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water: List of Issues : Stage One

View the List of Issues: Stage One to the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Inquiry here.

Havelock North water contamination inquiry under way

6:51 pm on 27 October 2016

The government inquiry into the Havelock North drinking-water contamination held its first hearing at the Hastings District Court this morning.

More than 5000 people became seriously ill in August after contracting camplyobacter from drinking the town water supply.

The cause of the contamination has not yet been determined.

The hearing today focussed on procedural matters, and appearances from parties interested in making submissions.

Substantive issues will be dealt with at a later date.

A lawyer appointed by the Solicitor-General to the inquiry, Nathan Gedye, said questions of civil or criminal liability would not be considered.

The inquiry is focussing on how the Havelock North water supply system became contaminated, how this was subsequently addressed, and how local and central government agencies responded.

It will also look at how to reduce the risk of outbreaks of this nature recurring.

The inquiry is due to report at the end of March next year.

- RNZ

View the full article here.

Minute No. 2: Stages of the inquiry and processes for evidence 28 October 2016

View the Government Inquiry into the Havelock North Drinking Water under the Inquiries Act 2013 in the Matter of Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking Water - Minute No. 2: Stages of the inquiry and processes for evidence 28 October 2016 here.

Havelock North water inquiry would look at fault, but not 'liability'

The inquiry into the Havelock North gastro outbreak would look at which organisation or individual was at fault but it would not determine any "civil, criminal or disciplinary liability", a court has heard.

The comment was made at the opening of the government inquiry into the outbreak at an initial public hearing in the Hastings District Court on Thursday, by Nathan Gedye QC, who appeared as counsel assisting for the Solicitor-General.

The Inquiry followed the widespread outbreak of gastroenteritis in Havelock North in August 2016, with more than 5200 people falling ill, following the confirmation of the presence of campylobacter in the water supply.

Gedye said the inquiry would look at how the event happened, what went wrong and how to prevent such an event occurring again.

The inquiry would not look at civil, criminal or disciplinary liability but would look at fault, he said, but acknowledged there was "a fine line between the two".

It needed to look at whether any organisation or individual was at fault "in order to make sensible decisions for the future".

He said the inquiry would be looking at the adequacy of all contingency plans, including those of the Hastings District Council, Hawke's Bay Regional Council and the Hawke's Bay District Heath Board.

Inquiry panel chair, retired Court of Appeal judge Lyn Stevens QC, opened the hearing by saying the inquiry's terms of reference "require us to investigate and report on how the Havelock North supply became contaminated, how the outbreak was addressed, the adequacy of the response and how to reduce risk of recurrence of an outbreak of this nature".

Havelock North gastro outbreak will have a lasting impact

The Havelock North gastro outbreak will have a lasting impact on how its inhabitants value drinking water for years to come.

He said the inquiry had to report back to government by late March next year and achieving that deadline would "require real co-operation from all parties".

He said it would be an inquisitorial process "and is not a court case".

Thursday's hearing, which lasted just an hour and 40 minutes, was about "getting the show on the road" and not about looking at facts or evidence.

Issues will be able to be addressed, and evidence given with witnesses cross-examined, at two later public hearings next month and in December.

Hastings District Council's lawyer Matthew Casey QC reiterated the apologies made by Mayor Lawrence Yule and ceo Ross McLeod for the contamination occurring and said the council would "do its utmost" to assist the inquiry.

He welcomed the fact that the panel's primary focus was not "pointing the finger" and trying to find who was at fault.

More than fifty people attended the hearing. Lawyers present represented the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, Hastings District Council, the Hawke's Bay District Health Board, the Health Ministry. Ministry for the Environment and the Department of Internal Affairs.

The purpose of the hearing was to take appearances from interested parties on preliminary and procedural matters, including the designation of parties as "core participants" under Section 17 of the Inquires Act 2013.

Parties able to be designated as core participants are those who have "played, or may have played, a direct and significant role in relation to the matters to which the inquiry relates", "have a significant interest in a substantial aspect of the matters to which the inquiry relates", and/or have been "subject to explicit or serious criticism during the inquiry or in the report".

Core participants have the right to give evidence and make submissions to the inquiry, subject to any directions of that inquiry.

Two elderly women who died were found to have contracted campylobacter, but both had other health issues. Two people developed Guillain Barre Syndrome, a serious neurological condition that can develop in the weeks after a campylobacter infection.

Testing through the health system led the Hastings District Council and the Hawke's Bay District Health Board staff to suspect that Campylobacter as the primary infectious agent.

The other inquiry members are New Zealand Qualifications Authority chief executive Karen Poutasi and Wellington City Council chief engineer Anthony Wilson.

Further public hearings will be held between November 28 and December 2 and between December 12 and 20.

- Stuff

View the full article here.

Final Terms of Reference for Havelock North Inquiry

Final Terms of Reference for Havelock North Inquiry 160912 Final TOR Havelock North Inquiry.pdf

Drinking-water Management Current Issues Update 4

Update 4 – Emergency Response Options - October 2016

The purpose of these updates is to create a knowledge environment where all members can access the best information to plan, operate and maintain drinking water networks which takes account of any of the learnings from Havelock North and generally accepted best practice.

Coping with the initial stages of an event without prior planning can leave you on the back foot in a reactive mode for weeks. Having pre-planned contingency plans can put you in the driving seat in an event rather than jumping from one issue to the next.

  • 1.Media
  • 2.Emergency Chlorine dosing
  • 3.Removing Boil Water Notice plan
  • 4.Flushing Plan
  • 5.Assistance

Media

One of the unexpected demands that come at you during an event is coping with the media. If left to their own devices requests for interviews and information will come at you randomly throughout the day. By creating a media plan and funnelling all requests through one person you can then set times when media statements will be given and have a reasonable chance of getting a consistent message out to the public.

Media can also help aid during an event; they are set up than water utilities to contact affected users if a boil water notice needs to be issued. There is no easy way to ensure everybody is notified in such events. The use of digital motorway signs or the portable trailer digital signs on the side of the road have been effective in some cases. Some emergency management centres have a high social media following (i.e. Facebook & Twitter), the more methods that are used the better chance of notifying everyone.

Emergency Chlorine Dosing

If you have an unchlorinated supply then one of the obvious contingencies required is an emergency chlorine dosing system. There are a number of different emergency chlorine systems in place around the country, some are:

  • Packaged self-contained portable hypo-chlorite systems
  • Batch HTH chlorine plants
  • Pre- installed hypo-chlorite dosing plants that dose water in to the fluoride dilution tanks. (HFa gets turned off and removed from the same enclosure)
  • Small gas chlorinators attached to 90 kg bottles

The ability to test these systems in an unchlorinated network is always a challenge. Any stored hypo-chlorite will eventually lose its effectiveness. If online chlorine analysers are used, they typically take 24 hours to become stable when changing from a non-chlorinated supply to a chlorinated supply.

In the case of a significant seismic event, it is considered good practice to initiate chlorine dosing straight away. The reasoning behind this is both source and reticulation related; broken sewer mains may now be present near any bores or reticulation mains.

Removing Boil Water Notice Plans

Most authorities have pre-prepared boil water notices as a contingency but not many have thought about the issues involved in getting a boil water notice lifted. Identifying who the various parties are that need to be consulted and the various steps that have to be taken prior to getting back to normal are all part of this plan. In some past national events it has taken up to 6 weeks after the event before the boil water notices have been lifted and people’s lives have got back to a sense of normality. The local District Health Board officer will definitely be involved in this process.

The steps involved in removing a boil water notice are:

  • Eliminate, isolate, minimise the contamination source
  • Ensuring a non-contaminated source is available or treatment can be provided to minimise risk.
  • Ensuring the various zones within the reticulation network are isolated from each other, avoiding any risk of recontamination
  • Method of communicating requirements to those with onsite storage or private communities, large industries, dialysis patients, medical facilities.
    • Register of where the sites are and if they have been contacted.
    • Timing of when to flush, ensuring they are flushing with a non-contaminated source.
  • Creating a flushing plan if the contamination is protozoa, chemical or toxin related.
  • Communication plan to consumers
    • Notification of possible reduced pressure during flushing
    • General advice on individual residential flushing requirements
    • Where to look for notification of the boil water notice removal
  • Testing plan and requirements

Flushing Plans

The source of the contamination will determine if a flushing plan is required. If normal levels of chlorine will remove the contamination then a testing plan is all that should be required. If the contamination cannot be safely mitigated by chlorine alone then a flushing plan is required.

In previous contamination events that have occurred in New Zealand, the flushing has been carried out by systematically isolating each section of pipe work, opening hydrants for a recorded duration and where required repeating the process from the other direction, this was to ensure that no dead sections of pipes have been left behind due to hydrant location and any turbidity stirred up by the isolation and flushing actions and entrapped air has been flushed clear.

In Havelock North’s case a recently calibrated reticulation hydraulic model was available. Modellers were able to identify and model which hydrant locations needed to be left running in order to displace three times the reticulation volume through the system. The flow rates were calculated using 5 L/s per hydrant and excluded normal demand. The demand was purposely excluded as a contingency volume to further ensure flushing was achieved.

Some locations were chosen in order to minimise local surface flooding caused by flushing. There were a few dead leg sections that required to be separately flushed.

The benefits of using a hydraulic model to flush the system are:

  • That it was a continuous flush process and therefore took less time than systematically working through the network, (calculated to be approximately 4 days quicker for Havelock North for the 100mm diameter mains alone)
  • Fewer crews required for the flushing, although a number of hydrant standpipes are required.
  • Health and Safety benefits for crews from less time spent on the road
  • Less inconvenience to the consumers through less low pressure occasions and traffic management.

High level zone reservoirs with combined inlet / outlet main were isolated from the main zone with the use of RPZ’s at the pump stations supplying the zone; this was to ensure a single point of failure couldn’t cause the low level zone to become re-contaminated.

Assistance

“It’s not often easy to think of draining the swamp when you are up to your arm pits in alligators”

Individuals tolerance to stress outside of their normal comfort zone all differ, some thrive on it, others become overwhelmed. Emergency events that span multiple days are not typical BAU for water utilities and they are not normally resourced to cope with long drawn out events. The Water industry in New Zealand is small, approachable and knowledge sharing, we all know others in the industry with similar issues, plants and networks.
Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance and delegate tasks to those who will assist you.

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water New Zealand
noel.roberts@waterNZ.org.nz

Drinking-water Management Current Issues Update 3

Update 3 – How are Hastings District Council getting on - September 2016

Even though the media have taken the pressure off Hastings District Council (HDC), Brett Chapman, Dylan Stuijt and their teams have been proactive in finding the cause of the recent contamination and preparing Havelock North for the coming summer.

  • The HDC team are getting back normal, and weekend work has diminished although daily testing across the network continues at 32 sites.
  • HDC have noticed a significant increase in public interest in water, (milky water, blue water complaints) there is an increase in leak detection by public although a good thing it has unfortunately come with an increase in expectations to respond quicker for non-urgent repairs.
  • Hawkes Bay Regional Council, Hawkes Bay District Health Board and HDC have a joint testing programme to investigate the Brookvale bore contamination, including:
    • Ground penetrating radar
    • Electromagnetic surface testing
    • Terrain modelling and over lying rain modelling to trace possible sourcecontaminants on the surface.
    • Extensive dye tracing throughout the immediate area surrounding the bores. Die tracing test instrument from Australia that can analyse multiple traces (locations) at once.
  • A camera inspection of the bores is scheduled towards the end of the programme. Bores are being run to wasteoffline to re-establish aquifer conditions.
  • No obvious cause of contamination has been identified as yet.
  • HDC are currently in advanced planning stage for installing cartridge filters and UV for the Brookvale bores in order for them to supplement the Hastings supply and cope with the expected summer demand.The decision on chlorination is yet to be made however there is provision to include chlorination post treatment. At least one bore is required to operate.
  • HDC are taking the opportunity to review their long term strategies for network, renewals and upgrades in order to re-assess options for the most efficient way of operating the supply in the future.
  • The national inquiry is due to start next week.
  • Chlorination for Hastings and Havelock North will continue until at least mid-November.

Not surprisingly HDC (and others in the industry) now have concerns on the perception of ground water security by using age testing and how this is determined. GNS are writing a future update to help explain this process to the industry.

The following public forum has been created for members to provide comments and their experiences.

http://forum.waternz.org.nz/index.php?sid=e9fdf326a4f37e3bfbd76b1321837aa4

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water New Zealand

Drinking-water Management Current Issues Update 2

Update 2 – DWSNZ ongoing bore requirements - September 2016

The purpose of these updates is to create a knowledge environment where all members can access the best information to plan, operate and maintain drinking water networks which takes account of any of the learnings from the Hawkes bay and generally accepted best practice.

As new information / knowledge from the Havelock North contamination become available, we’ll include it with these updates.

Ground water bores have a number of ongoing maintenance and compliance requirements as per the Drinking Water Standards New Zealand 2005 revised 2008 (DWSNZ), in addition to the normal E.coli and other monitoring.

If a supply is relying on the secure bore status and there is no microbiological treatment after the bore, then at a minimum frequency of every five years the following needs to carried out:

  • The water age status needs to be carried out to confirm the water is older than one year to prove the water is not directly affected by surface or climatic influences, that a protozoa risk is not present.
  • Each well needs to have a bore head inspection (sanitary survey)
  • Water Safety Plan review

The drinking water supplier could determine that more frequent assessments are needed, based on a review- of the water catchment or in response to significant land use changes within the catchment and/or recharge zone. A change in water characteristics or the presence of E.coli at a well head could also be trigger to reassess the secure crtieria.

From the DWSNZ there is also the continued compliance bore water security criterion 3. Note that it is a minimum sample frequency table.

Table 4.5: Minimum sampling frequency for E. coli in bore water

Supply type Population served 6 Minimum sampling frequency Maximum days between samples
Bore waters with interim security, 1 bores 10 to 30 m deep, 2 the bore representing a bore field, 3 provisionally secure bores 4 Up to 500 7 Weekly 13
501–10,000 Twice a week 5
More than 10,000 Daily 1
Secure bore water supplies 5 All Monthly 45 (135)

Notes:

1. Monitoring requirements for bore water granted interim secure status may be reduced to one sample per month for the remaining nine months independent of population band (maximum of 45 days between samples) provided no E. coli has been detected during the first three months (section 4.5.2.3).

2. Monitoring requirements for bores 10–30 m deep drawing from unconfined aquifers may be reduced to monthly (maximum of 45 days between samples) for the final four years and nine months provided no E. coli has been detected during the first three months. This is independent of population band (section 4.5.1).

3. Monitoring requirements for the bore representing a multiple bore field may be reduced to monthly independent of population band (maximum of 45 days between samples) provided no E. coli has been detected during the first three months (section 4.5.3). As a prerequisite, all bores drawing from the same field must have no E. coli in three consecutive monthly samples.

4. Monitoring requirements for secure bore water that has been downgraded to provisionally secure may be reduced to one sample per month for the remaining nine months independent of population band (maximum of 45 days between samples) provided no E. coli has been detected during the first three months (sections 4.5.5.1 and 4.5.5.2).

5. Monitoring requirements for secure bore water supplies may be reduced to one sample per quarter (maximum of 135 days between samples) after no E. coli has been detected in 12 consecutive months of sampling after the bore water has been granted fully secure status.

6. If the bore is not the sole source, determine the population band by agreement with the DWA.

7. Sampling frequencies for E. coli in participating supplies servicing fewer than 500 people are discussed in section 10.

8. If the bore is used irregularly, variations to the sampling frequency must be agreed with the DWA.

Age compliance

There are three methods of proving compliance with the age criteria as identified in the DWSNZ, in order of preference used they are:

  1. Residence time tests carried out by GNS (look for a future guideline on this).
  2. Constant composition where conductivity, chloride and nitrate results are shown to be within a tight constant tolerance throughout the period.
  3. A verified hydrogeological model

The most commonly selected is residence time testing.

Bore head inspection (Sanitary survey)

This is an onsite review that needs to take in to account the water source, facilities, equipment, operation, and maintenance of a public water system for the purpose of evaluating its ability to produce and distribute safe drinking-water. This is required to be carried out by a person recognised as an expert in the field. It’s a balcony view of all the potential risks each bore has.

There are the obvious checks such as (but not limited to):

  • Stock prevented from getting within 5 m of the bore
  • Vandal proof
  • Sloping concrete apron surrounding the bore with a 2 m radii
  • The seal between casing and concrete apron is intact and extends at least 3 m down the casing (construction drawing required)
  • Air vents opening are vermin proofed, facing down and above the flood level
  • Where dual casings exits and bentonite is used to seal between the inner and outer casings, the bentonite level should be at the right height, (does it get checked after a reasonable earthquake?)
  • Backflow protection exists and is checked
  • Reasonable condition (no significant corrosion, is in working order)
  • Saline monitoring (where applicable)

And then there are the wider aspects that also need to be looked at like:

  • Changing raw water conditions between surveys.
  • What changes have occurred upstream of the bores i.e. new trade waste practises, sceptic tanks, structures with deep foundations. (What might be heading towards the bores). This will involve forming a good relationship with the relevant Regional Council.
  • Staff turnover and training
  • Standby power

Water Safety Plans

The bore head inspection and water safety plans (WSP, previously termed Public Health Risk Management Plans)) are linked in that any potential risk identified during the inspection, has a plan with how that issue will be controlled should it occur.

Section 4.5.2.2. of the DWSNZ (Bore Water Security) states “The supply’s water safety plan must address contaminant sources and contaminant migration pathways.”

The outputs from the plan could range from following existing emergency chlorine dosing procedures through to projects identified to rectify issue and Capex funding will be available in year X.

The relevant Ministry of Health ground water related WSP templates are attached to help guide you.

Surface and Ground water sources.

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/source-surface-ground-water-sources-feb14-v2.docx

Ground water abstraction - bores and wells

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/treatment-bores-and-wells-feb14-v2.docx

Ground Water Abstraction Springs

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/treatment-springs-feb14-v2.docx

Pump Operation

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/treatment-pump-operation-feb14-v2.docx

Link to the Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality Management for New Zealand, chapter on source water.

http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/dw-quality-management-chapter-3-mar16.doc

A Relevant Ground Water document

Another useful document on the design and operation of bores also from the Ministry of Health website, is this link below; don’t be put off by the small drinking water supply title.

https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/design-operation-bores-small-drinking-water-supplies-2010_0.pdf

The following public forum has been created for members to provide comments and their experiences.

http://forum.waternz.org.nz/index.php?sid=e9fdf326a4f37e3bfbd76b1321837aa4

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water New Zealand

Water New Zealand Media Release - Inquiry provides for much-needed review of drinking water

Water New Zealand says the inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacter outbreak provides a much-needed opportunity to focus on the way drinking water is managed across New Zealand.

View the Media Release here.

Final Terms of Reference for Havelock North Inquiry

View the final Terms of Reference for the Government Inquiry into Havelock North Drinking-water

Inquiry provides for much-needed review of drinking water

13 September 2016

Water New Zealand says the inquiry into the Havelock North campylobacter outbreak provides a much-needed opportunity to focus on the way drinking water is managed across New Zealand.

President Brent Manning says he welcomes the terms of reference which will look at the regulatory regimes under which various agencies operate as well as any lessons and improvements that can be made to both local and central government systems.

“This is an opportunity to look at the roles and responsibilities of both central and local government in the supply of our drinking water.”

He says access to safe, clean drinking water is one of the expectations of living in a developed country but this comes at a cost.

“Under the current system, this is a cost that is largely imposed on local authorities and it is one which many smaller communities struggle to afford.”

Brent Manning says New Zealanders should also better understand the options around drinking water treatment along with the risks and benefits of different approaches.

“This is not a simple issue but it is one which needs a national discussion and the inquiry will provide that opportunity.”

The inquiry, to be headed by retired judge Lyn Stevens, will include a former Water New Zealand President, engineer Anthony Wilson, as well as former director-general of health, Karen Poutasi.

For more information contact Brent Manning tel 027 752 2187 or Communications Advisor Debra Harrington tel 027 202 8857

Water New Zealand is a national not-for-profit organisation which promotes the sustainable management and development of New Zealand’s three waters (freshwater, wastewater and storm water). Water New Zealand is the country's largest water industry body, providing leadership and support in the water sector through advocacy, collaboration and professional development. Its 1,600 members are drawn from all areas of the water management industry including regional councils and territorial authorities, consultants, suppliers, government agencies, academia and scientists.

Drinking-Water Management Current Issues Update 1

Update 1 - September 2016

As you may be aware Hastings District Council and Hawke’s Bay Regional Council have been confronted with an aquifer contamination effecting Havelock North’s water supply, which will now be the subject of a National Inquiry. Water NZ will support this inquiry but in the meantime is in a position to share knowledge and be a thought leader on issues as they evolve from Havelock North throughout the water industry.

In order to achieve this knowledge sharing and thought leadership we intend to release a regular update to our members. These will be brief and informative.

Water NZ is an industry association whose aim is to support its member’s delivery of 3 waters services to New Zealand. Water NZ is in a unique position to understand issues and share knowledge for the benefit of all members.

Learning’s from Havelock North

At a high level the events at Havelock North to date are:

  • E.coli presence in Havelock North bores 1 & 2 confirmed on 12 th August from a sample taken on 11 th August
  • On the 12 th August after consultation with District Health Board it was agreed to initiate chlorine dosing immediately and a boil water notice was issued not long after.
  • Havelock North’s bores were turned off and supplied via Hastings on the 24 th August
  • A reticulation flushing regime was started on the 25 th August.
  • The boil water notice was lifted on the 3 rd September.

Very early on in the contamination event the primary concern moved from a bacterial or viral risk to a potential protozoa risk as the bores could no longer be deemed to be supplying water from a secure ground water source, hence the boil water notice.

E-coli are used as an indicator of risk. If E-coli are present then there is a good chance other pathogenic bacteria, viruses or protozoa could also be present. Presence means a count greater than zero. In Havelock North’s case the highest E.coli result was >23/100ml (maximum reporting limit) on one occasion only with all other days having results less than 23/100ml.

E.coli results of greater the 23/100ml are common in many rain water supplied systems or other previous national contamination incidents. The infectious dose for campylobacter can be anywhere between 500 – 9000 organisms. In Havelock North’s contamination event the presence of E.coli indicated that campylobacter was present in far greater numbers than E.coli.

Here lies a water industry challenge for managing the public health risks and how we manage our ground water sources.

Some of the topics we intend to be covering are the current requirements for:

  • Sanitary surveys of bores
  • Secure ground water status as defined by the NZDWS
  • Routine and Preventative operations and maintenance – people, process and equipment
  • Monitoring and compliance
  • Possible Emergency Response options (Water Safety Plans – Risk Management)
    • Emergency chlorine dosing
    • Flushing plans
    • Media plans
    • Assistance
  • Interaction with other agencies to ensure we have safe water supplies and the roles of respective agencies; who takes a lead in these situations?
  • Monitoring chlorine demand through the network.
  • The national inquiry information as it unfolds

The following public forum has been created for members to provide comments and their experiences.

http://forum.waternz.org.nz/index.php?sid=e9fdf326a4f37e3bfbd76b1321837aa4

Regards
Noel Roberts
Technical Manager
Water New Zealand

HAVELOCK NORTH WATER CHLORINATION: BRENT MANNING RESPONDS TO MP STUART NASH

You may have seen the opinion piece published in the Hawkes Bay Today http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503459&objectid=11700023

on Thursday 25 August by Napier MP Stuart Nash.

Mr Nash wrongly attributed a recent Radio NZ interview http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201812605

to me rather than Chief Executive John Pfahlert who gave the interview, however as President of Water New Zealand I have been happy to respond to Mr Nash.

I do agree with Mr Nash on a number of points he made: we do undervalue our water in this country and take its provision and supply for granted; secondly, it is important to “ensure the infrastructure delivering the water is up to standard” - this in fact one of the strategic priorities encapsulated in the National Infrastructure Plan 2015 and strongly supported by Water New Zealand and our members nationwide. Lastly the events and effect of the water contamination and ensuing gastric outbreak in Havelock North is a travesty, but it is one which could possibly have happened in a number of other towns or cities in New Zealand.

We know Councils and public water supply engineers and treatment technicians work hard to deliver good quality safe drinking water - New Zealand mandated a suite of comprehensive Drinking Water Standards in 2008 - and a timeframe for compliance which many public water supplies now meet, thanks in part to investment by councils aided in some cases by government subsidy. The Drinking Water Standards are entirely about mitigating the risk to public health through supplied water (including tankered delivery), however compliance won't guarantee mitigation against every risk.

Without chlorination, once a waterborne pathogen (disease causing microorganism) becomes prevalent in a water network there needs to be a means of disinfecting the water mains and killing the bugs. Although there are alternatives, chlorine has for decades been used as a very effective disinfectant because it provides for residual disinfecting, all the way to our homes and businesses.

There can be downsides - chlorine added to water high in organics can give rise to disinfection by products, some of which are claimed to be carcinogenic. And chlorine won’t remove protozoa (single-celled microorganisms such as cryptosporidiosis and giardia) if they find their way into the water network. Micro-filtration of the water to less than 1 micron will, however, and this treatment is fairly commonplace in New Zealand now. Properly treated, the water quality can be controlled through successive treatment 'barriers’ and the risks managed – primarily though the level of treatment required is determined by the quality of the source water – a secure groundwater offers some protection but even for the purest water or highly treated water, once it is in the water network and pipes in the streets, if there is no residual disinfectant then there is no remaining protection if a bug does enter the pipes.

It is time for a more public discussion about what level of public health risk the community is prepared to tolerate (or not) and not simply leave it to the water suppliers - a point I'm pretty sure Mr Nash would agree with.

Brent Manning,
President, Water New Zealand

Submission by Water New Zealand on the Draft Terms of Reference for the Government Inquiry into the Havelock

Submission by Water New Zealand on the Draft Terms of Reference for the Government Inquiry into the Havelock

HAVELOCK NORTH WATER CONTAMINATION UPDATE

Well, it’s been an interesting 3 weeks since the outbreak of campylobacter in Havelock North. The outbreak is probably going to be a game changer in terms of the way we approach water treatment in New Zealand going forward. It’s certainly going to affect the work plan of the Association in the coming months.

While the cause of the outbreak is still unknown, staff at Hastings District Council has been doing a great job both responding to the media and dealing with the issue at a technical level. I met with them last Friday and assured them of our ongoing support. My thanks go to them and the other industry professionals who have stepped up to help them.

Water New Zealand has issued two media statements in relation to the issue, and these are on the website. I have given a number of newspaper, radio and TV interviews as a result. As a media issue the issue has “legs” and is likely to continue as the inquiry runs its course. You can expect to see Water New Zealand position itself to be a key spokesperson on this issue – because any changes to legislation, drinking water standards, the grading system etc all affect day to day operations in the sector.

In fact, we plan to set up a specific page on the website where all our media statements, articles and important correspondence will be stored. This will allow members to keep track of this issue as the inquiry progresses.

Early this week I convened a meeting of 8 industry experts on water treatment and related issues to discuss a plan of action. The first action was to write to the Attorney General with some suggestions for improvements to the Terms of Reference for the independent inquiry into the outbreak. A copy of that letter is now also on our website.

At this stage we are expecting the government to appoint someone to head the inquiry, perhaps as early as next week? They will likely be supported by a couple of panel members with relevant expertise.

Once the inquiry head and panel are appointed and the Terms of Reference finalized, the inquiry will be supported by staff at the Department of Internal Affairs, because they administer the Inquiries Act.

As to the timing of inquiry – well that’s also unclear. It’s probable that they will report in stages. The first will be in relation to the actual event, and a later report on the systemic issues.

There will be a panel discussion at our annual conference on the topic with industry experts, so make sure you plan to attend this year.

www.waternz.org.nz/Havelock

Draft Terms of Reference into Havelock North Contamination

Draft Terms of Reference into Havelock North Contamination

Water New Zealand Media Release - Contamination Outbreak Shows Need to Review Water Treatment Rules

Water New Zealand Media Release - Contamination Outbreak Shows Need to Review Water Treatment Rules

Water New Zealand Media Release - Council Approach to Water Crisis Correct

Water New Zealand Media Release - Council Approach to Water Crisis Correct