The water report

A very good report into the wider issues around the Havelock water crisis. There are many good recommendations. It shows that the status quo of just leave it to local government is not a good one.

You have divided responsibilities between the 76 or so territorial authorities, the 16 regional councils, the 12 DHBs and the various water companies that have been set up by the authorities.

Some key recommendations are:

The secure classification system in section 4.5 of the DWSNZ should be abolished forthwith. The concept of a secure classification is fundamentally flawed as it does not provide a sound or safe basis for dispensing with treatment or reducing monitoring requirements and provides an erroneous and misleading message that the bore water is safe

Basically some water is not treated as the water source is classified as secure. The report says no source can be regarded as secure and all drinking water should be treated. This will be controversial.

The Director-General of Health should promptly provide firm and clear advice to drinking water suppliers that all supplies should be appropriately and effectively treated pending any change to the law and/or the DWSNZ.

This will be an interesting issue for the Greens as they tend to be against adding stuff to “natural” supplies.

Given the existence of a compelling case for dedicated and aggregated suppliers being established as an effective and affordable means to improve compliance, competence and accountability, the Government should make a decisive and definitive assessment of whether to mandate, or persuade, suppliers to establish aggregated dedicated water suppliers.

This is also key. Some Councils have set up supply companies that work within a region, but others do it themselves. As a country we should have say no more than a dozen regional water supply companies, rather than the hotchpot we currently have.

Some local authorities will resist this. It will be interesting to see if the Government will be willing to fight them to do this.