Scirt errors cause massive water loss in Christchurch

Scirt errors cause massive water loss in Christchurch

.About 12 million litres of water went down Christchurch drains in 2014 because of damage caused by road works, demolitions and construction.

Information released by the Christchurch City Council showed there were 865 "damage jobs" to the city's water network last year.

The 12 million litres of water lost equated to 1 million toilet flushes, 160,000 loads of washing, or five Olympic-sized swimming pools.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/FAIRFAX NZ

Damage during road works, such as burst water mains, sent 12 million litres of water down the drain in Christchurch in 2014.

Most - but not all - of the damage happened on Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (Scirt) sites.

Scirt is made up of five construction companies and funded by taxpayers and ratepayers. The organisation has been fixing the Christchurch's roads, water, wastewater and sewerage networks since the earthquakes.

About 40 per cent of the damage jobs were responded to as a matter of urgency and usually involved an unplanned shut-off or loss of services, causing disruption to residents and businesses, the council said.

In one incident, damage to a water main in Port Hills Rd triggered a 200-litre-per-second burst, with an estimated loss of about 800,000 litres in total.

The council said bursts on water connections, submains and mains were not "always the fault of the Scirt contractor".

"They may be coincidental bursts while the contractor is on the site and in some instances, while they are damage jobs it may be because the pipe damaged has not been shown in its correct position on the plan."

The council said all true damage jobs were repaired by the council's maintenance contractor City Care before the council was reimbursed by the contractors who caused the damage.

Road works were not always to blame though.

Other types of work that caused damage to the water network included enabling ultrafast broadband rollout, fence installation and removal, construction and maintenance.

The 865 jobs made up about 7.5 per cent of the total number of jobs carried out on the water network in 2014.

The council did not keep information about which bursts caused road closures or flooding to neighbouring properties.

Just last week, a burst water main closed Hackthorne Rd in Cashmere to downhill traffic while emergency repairs were undertaken.

Several other incidents this year - including in Barrington, Aranui and Redcliffs - had caused road closures, flooding to homes and businesses, and loss of services.

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