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Every ratepayer in Palmerston North could face an annual bill of at least $1000 for 30 years to fund a new sewage treatment system.
It is a situation that could be repeated across New Zealand as councils are warned there are no more free lunches when it comes to water.
In Palmerston North, city mayor Grant Smith knows city ratepayers will have to dig deep for the new wastewater system, part of the Nature Calls project.
"When I arrived in the job nine years ago the project was a $30 million upgrade. It's now $640-odd million."
Regional councils have made the case for nearly $200 million in funding from the Government to deliver 80 flood protection projects quicker.
“We can’t do this alone," Greater Wellington Regional Council Chair Daran Ponter said.
“We're hopeful that either via the budget or through a separate funding arrangement the Government will put co-investment into 80 flood protection schemes in most regions of the country."
The Government funding request totals $197.61 million, with the total programme cost, including local government investment, totalling $329.35 million.
Greenpeace has written to Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand over its concerns about nitrate in Canterbury's drinking water.
The organisation said it tested 445 water samples in North Canterbury this past weekend and the results indicated town supplies in Darfield, Kirwee and Oxford had nitrate levels above the 5mg/L threshold.
Spokesperson Amanda Larsson said that was the level which could increase the risk of pre-term birth.
"The highest readings we see are often from private bores in rural areas. It's less common to see such high readings in the public town supply. For comparison, about 80 percent of New Zealand's drinking water is below 1mg/L so 5 mg/L in the town supply is high," she said.
New Zealand's emergency management system has failed in places and is not fit for purpose, an inquiry into the response to last year's catastrophic North Island storms has found.
The inquiry - chaired by former Governor-General Sir Jerry Mateparae - found the country is not ready to respond to large-scale emergencies.
The report was released on Tuesday and found that in some places the system failed completely, and it did not enable people to properly prepare or respond to the disaster around them.
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