Drinking Water Protection Conference

Principle Public Health-Hydraulic Engineer

nickfleckney@gmail.com

021 648 857

Nick Fleckney is a Principle Hydraulic-Public Health Engineer currently working for Mott MacDonald, based in Christchurch, undertaking a wide and varied range of work related to the Hydraulic-Public health disciplines which also includes the very important task of ensuring and maintaining the security of potable water systems that serve the public.

Nick is active in the water, education and design space when it comes to all things Hydraulics, he is the current chair of the AHSCANZ (Association of Hydraulic Services Consultants Australia New Zealand) just recently served a 9-year tenure on the Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, provides expert witness services and input into government enquiries as and when required.

With his trade background as a Registered & Licensed Certifying Plumber, Gasfitter, Drainlayer, accredited Backflow tester/Surveyor & educationalist Nick has developed and fine-tuned a suite of specialist skillsets that is extremely rare in the professional engineering consulting environment.

Nick lives in the Selwyn District with his family and is an avid supporter of the NZ Warriors!

Regulator Team Lead

peter.wood@taumataarowai.govt.nz

022 401 7502

Peter is employed by Taumata Arowai as the Regulatory Team Leader, Te Papaioea. He was part of the team that drafted the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules that came into effect in November 2022. Peter has been involved in drinking water regulatory roles since 1991 as a Health Protection Officer, and as a Drinking Water Assessor from 2007. He believes in protecting the health of people through the provision of safe drinking water.

bruce.mclaren@taumataarowai.govt.nz

Bruce is the Regulatory Operations Manager responsible for the regional offices and activities of the frontline staff across the motu. He first joined the public service so long ago that he signed the Official Secrets Act. He has seen a lot of changes since then and he joined Taumata Arowai because it is an exciting time with a whole new way of regulating this sector, and Taumata Arowai is at the leading edge of doing things differently.

Senior Advisor Plumbing and Hydraulic Services

ross.wakefield@mbie.govt.nz

021 234 2649

Senior Advisor for Plumbing and Hydraulic Services – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

021 234 2649 - ross.wakefield@mbie.govt.nz

https://www.building.govt.nz/

Ross Wakefield is the Senior Advisor for Plumbing and Hydraulic Services within the Building Performance and Engineering team at MBIE. His focus is on developing and maintaining the parts of the New Zealand Building Code system which support plumbing and drainage work.

MBIEs Building Performance and Engineering team work to strengthen the Building Code to ensure it continues to set appropriate minimum requirements for New Zealand's buildings, and that the Acceptable Solutions and Verification Methods support the construction industry in meeting these requirements.

Ross trained as a Plumber, Gasfitter and Drainlayer in the Royal NZ Army Engineers, and since packing up his tools he’s worked as a Plumbing and Drainage Inspector, Industry Training Assessor and Hydraulic Services Design Consultant.

Ross is passionate about working to ensure New Zealanders have safe and reliable plumbing and drainage systems.

Water Sector Lead & Project Manager

maria.johnson@gwe.co.nz

021 118 6269

Maria Johnson is a Chemistry and Physics Engineer from France and a Project Manager from the Prince 2 Foundation. As the Water Sector Lead at GWE Consulting Engineers, she focuses on drinking water compliance for various supply types and sizes in the context of the water reform. As part of her career in New Zealand in the past 15 years, Maria has worked on a variety of water supply projects and investigations. She lives in Auckland rural suburb Wainui with her husband and two children.

Senior Environmental Scientist

zoe.lightfoot@pdp.co.nz

021 226 4101

Zoe Lightfoot is a Senior Environmental Scientist at GWE Consulting Engineers, with over eight years’ experience in drinking water, contaminated land and environmental regulations. Recent work has included drinking water compliance assessments and the development of water safety plans including source water risk management plans for a range of smaller private and larger council owned water supplies. She lives in Auckland with her fiancé and dog and loves the outdoors.

Bioinfomatician

william.taylor@esr.cri.nz

William Taylor is a bioinformatician and senior scientist at ESR. Based in Christchurch, his work and research is primarily focused on the applications of metagenomics to identify microbes and the presence of pathogenic organisms, antibiotic resistance, and microbial community composition. His current work utilises Illumina short read and Oxford Nanopore Technologies long read sequencing to perform amplicon and whole genome sequence analysis. Being highly collaborative, he works with members across ESR’s national campuses, with councils and researchers from universities and research institutes both domestic and international.

The Water Chemist, Managing Director and Founder

chris@templewater.co.nz

Qualified NZCS Chemist Chris Temple founded Temple Water Technologies to provide rural New Zealand with the highest standard of scientifically engineered water treatment. At Temple Water, Chris continues to add to an extensive career in water filtration and treatment, with over 30 years of experience encompassing consulting, laboratory analysis, engineering and sales.

A graduate of the Auckland Technical Institute, Chris has worked throughout the Pacific region and has successfully completed projects in New Zealand, Australia, Papua New Guinea and his country of birth, Fiji. His customers have come from a variety of sectors and have included government & community agencies, food & beverage manufacturers, horticulturalists and dairy farmers.

Chris’s multi-disciplinary abilities and purist approach to water treatment have seen him highly sought after both on a consulting and system manufacturing basis. For Chris, water treatment has been both a career and an obsession where his relentless investigation and ultimate resolution of each water situation is somewhat of a calling.

A member of the Water Quality Association since 2003, today Chris continues to oversee all aspects of Temple Water’s fully guaranteed treatment solutions including the analysis, design, assembly, testing and installation of each system.

National President of the BPAA

jeff@backflowservices.com.au

Jeff Parsonage has been in the Plumbing Industry for over 50 years.

He is a founding member and Treasurer of the Backflow Association in Victoria, established in 1996.

Jeff has been president of the National Backflow prevention association for 3 years.

Jeff has been running a backflow prevention business since 1996, he is passionate about the need for backflow prevention and regularly speaks and writes articles on the subject.

kelvinslade@sladebrosplumbing.com.au

Kelvin is plumber, drainer and gasfitter. Holding endorsements in Backflow Prevention, Thermostatic Mixing Valves, Solar - Heat Pump Hot water Systems and is a director of Slade Bros Plumbing in Brisbane. Kelvin is a board member of the Master Plumbers Association of Queensland serving as President from 2013 to 2017 and is a member of the Backflow Prevention Association of Australia Management Committee.

He has been a trainer for more than 12 years facilitating certificate IV courses throughout Queensland for MPAQ. During his role as a trainer, Kelvin took a keen interest in the management and treatment of Legionella bacteria in complex water systems within buildings, in particular aged care and healthcare facilities. In 2016 Kelvin was awarded a Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust to research legislation, training and best practice in the management and treatment of Legionella, traveling to the USA, Northern Ireland, England, Italy and Singapore.

The level of knowledge gained has enabled Kelvin to assist his clients with their water quality management, understand identified risk’s associated in their infrastructure and successfully treating Legionella outbreaks.

Senior Hydrogeologist

jbennett@tonkintaylor.co.nz

020 4173 6406

Dr Jeremy Bennett is a senior hydrogeologist at Tonkin & Taylor who advises water suppliers and managers across New Zealand and Australia on source water risks. He specialises in groundwater modelling and digital tools for assessing, visualising and communicating source water risks and their associated uncertainty.

Managing Director

richard@telfordconsulting.co.nz

027 203 5522

With over 30 years’ experience in the Plumbing and wider Water Industry, Richard has been involved in the Backflow Industry since 2008. Initially specialising in backflow testing and installation, he has since trained specifically to specialise in Cross Connection Surveying and Backflow Program Creation, Richard is now focussed on providing targeted training for Backflow Surveying, Installation, and related bespoke courses.

Richard represents Water New Zealand on two Joint Standards Committees, WS-014 (AS/NZS3500 – Australian/NZ Plumbing Code) & WS-023 (AS/NZS2845 – Drinking Water Protection), he was the driving force behind the Industry Standard "Field testing of backflow prevention devices and verification of air gaps" and ensuring that New Zealand's interests are front and center.

Technical Sales Engineer - Valves & Controls

phodgson@customcontrols.co.nz

021 818 512

Phil Hodgson is a trade and tertiary qualified Mechanical Engineer with a broad background.

Worked in design and project areas covering Process, materials handling, Valves and Control for various media including Steam, Water, and process applications.

For the last 7 years has been a member of the BF Group and is current Deputy Chair.

Heavily involved in the water industry with focus on working with and supplying Valves and Controls to Utilities and Contractors that build and maintain the water and wastewater infrastructure.

Principal Engineer - Water

richard.taylor@tcec.co.nz

021 745 671

Richard is a civil engineer with strong operational and planning experience in water supply networks due to his 22 years at the former Waitakere City Council in Auckland. At Waitakere he was directly involved with the sectorization of the network, monitoring and pressure management initiatives, and reducing water losses down to low levels.

Since late 2010 he has been employed by Thomas Consultants Ltd and works with councils around New Zealand assisting with the management of water losses and with water network planning.

He also runs a national two-day water loss training event every two years, and last year commenced an on-line water network training course which is proving to be very helpful and effective.

Manager: Water Services

peter.bahrs@tauranga.govt.nz

021 277 7237

Peter Bahrs is the Manager Water Services for Tauranga City Council. He has over 30 years of experience in the water industry both locally and abroad and has held a variety of roles with focus in the water and wastewater operations field.

In his various roles he has gained a wealth of experience including operational management of water and wastewater staff and infrastructure; the management of laboratories and quality systems; health and safety; asset management; O&M services contracts for water and involvement with capital and asset renewal projects.

Water Treatment Division Manager

Deborah.Prus-Loughlin@whiteint.co.nz

021 915 761

Deborah Prus-Loughlin has spent her entire career in Water. She started with a degree in Aquatic Bioscience, worked in Aquaculture in a salmon breeding program and has been designing drinking water systems for over 10 years. Her passion and speciality is in ensuring that small and very small water supplies have access to safe drinking water. She started the water treatment division of White International Ltd and now looks after New Zealand and Australia. She has been active during the rise of the new drinking water legislation and has been volunteering with Water New Zealand in assisting with writing training courses and documents.