The massive cost of water

Understanding the massive cost of water to ratepayers is critical to changing the way we use it, Queenstown Lakes District Mayor Vanessa van Uden said.

A campaign gearing up across the district aims to significantly reduce water use - set to have a direct impact on ratepayer’s wallets.

“Here’s the simple message, if we use less treated water, we will pay less for infrastructure, in fact millions of dollars less,” Mayor van Uden said.

In June, Council made a series of resolutions for a programme to reduce water consumption in the District.

Council had identified water demand management as a key issue for the district over the last two 10-Year Plans with the cost for water projected to reduce to $72 million from $171 million in 2009, over the next 10-years.

“Now Council wants to see some action,” Mayor van Uden said.

The more informed the community was about the cost of treated water and the reason to use water wisely; the more likely water conservation would become second nature.

“It has always been a challenge to shift people’s mind set because we live next to huge bodies of water but the cost comes in treating it,” QLDC infrastructure general manager Erik Barnes said.

In addition to rolling out a summer water conservation campaign, beginning next month, the Council was finalising two contracts to cover a three year education campaign.

“We have a number of initiatives including working with our young citizens through the existing Enviroschool structure. Our children will need to understand about water conservation for the future because it’s a global issue and it’s not going to go away,” Mr Barnes said.

Other initiatives included establishing two water conservation gardens and a campaign around optimal irrigation and watering.

“From the summer peaks we experience, we know irrigation is a major component. A massive amount of water is wasted through daytime watering,” he said.

Council would also look to its own water use. “Ideally we are looking to use the likes of untreated bore water for parks, reserves and playing fields,” he said. Council already had several examples where it used untreated water for irrigation such as the Lake Hayes showground and was working closely with Lakes Leisure on several initiatives, including Council funding to establish an alternative water source at the Events Centre.

Council also needed to continue to understand water use.

“Leak detection is another ongoing body of work but we also want to understand household use. We have been metering all households in Luggate for that purpose and we plan to meter pockets of properties throughout the district from early next year, on a voluntary basis, to help us draw the picture,” Mr Barnes said.

Council was not contemplating introducing compulsory metering at this stage but it might be a consideration in the future.

The first of what will be quarterly reporting on Council’s water demand management programme will be considered by full Council at its meeting on Tuesday (30 October).