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Water

We grew up in Tasman with an abundance of freshwater, but times have changed. We need to get smarter with our water use. Houses need to install rainwater collection tanks, this increases resilience in the community, and it decreases the load on stormwater systems and the waste of freshwater flushed straight out to sea. There are opportunities to improve the way we handle wastewater and greywater, both as individuals and as a district.

Nitrates and other contaminants need to be more carefully managed and monitored in the Tasman region. We cannot keep burying our head in the sand along with all the other rubbish that is being buried out of sight and all the while leaching into our aquifers.

We need to do better at protecting the health of our river water and to stop the leaching of chemicals into our aquifers.  But farmers and gravel extractors are not the only ones to blame as residential streams contain some of the highest levels of contaminants. We all need to clean up our act because Tasman waterways deserve better.

WATER TANKS

During the recent drought, there were a lot of people asking why the Council doesn’t make water tanks mandatory, or that the Council should buy water tanks in bulk and offer them at a subsidised rate.

To any rational person, the concept of each house having its own water tanks seems to be a no brainer. This is what I thought when I moved the motion in a Council meeting that water tanks should be compulsory on new builds – this was before Lower Queen Street had thousands of new homes built.

But the Mayor and his cohorts blocked my move.

There were several reasons thrown up for why would couldn’t make rainwater tanks compulsory. The mayor said it would be too expensive for first home buyers but apparently didn’t that concern him when making rural builds install three 25 thousand litre tanks (with two of those solely dedicated to firefighting storage). Another objection was the lack of space, however, there are many innovative solutions such as under driveways, garages, or in garage walls to overcome the space issue.

Expensive to treat and plumb was another objection for rainwater systems. But a full-blown treated supply integrated into the house is only one option. Water can be recycled into the house for non-potable uses such as washing machines and toilet flushing. The water could be used to wash cars and water gardens or stored for drought situations to increase network resilience.

Rainwater could even just be collected in tanks and released through drip-feed lines. One of the greatest impacts of development has been to drain swamps for agriculture and to channel water into fast-flowing streams. Our urban development channels most rainwater into pipes that head straight out to sea. Anything we can do to both relieve the sudden surge of stormwater into our pipe infrastructure and the exaggerated effect to the estuary must be beneficial. Not to mention any aquifer recharge that might be encouraged through slow–release systems.

The other obvious benefit is that once the full impact of the dam hits the water rates a tank reticulation system will soon pay for itself.

Tasman water is a precious commodity and it deserves a better level of respect. Join the other voters that think we need a Council with more than one last-century-solution for water issues facing the Tasman region.

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Dam Alternative Suggested

Brian Halstead, spokesman for a group of irrigators from Waimea Irrigators and Waters Users Inc, has suggested an alternative to the $82.5 million Waimea dam in the Lee Valley. The proposal is for a series of clay-lined, in-ground reservoirs along the Wairoa River to be filled during winter months. At an estimated cost of around $25 million, it is significantly cheaper than the dam option.

While that was less than half of the storage tipped for the proposed Waimea dam, it would “better serve the community and irrigators as a shorter-term measure at a fraction of the cost”.

The irrigators predict it will meet the needs of the irrigators in the Richmond / Mapua area for the next 40 years. The money generated from selling the water could also go toward paying down council debt.

The current mayor, Richard Kempthorne, welcomed the proposal and mayor hopeful, Maxwell Clark, branded it as an “excellent scheme” worthy of investigation. While Kit Maling, the other mayoral contender, was sceptical it would adequately meet the needs and did not want the dam proposal delayed because of a potential change of Government next year which could affect Government funding.

Read more here.

88 valley dam
Been here before

While this option is worth considering, I believe it is only better serving the community of irrigators, not the community as a whole. Council has already wasted an extraordinary amount of money on a temporary solution with the construction of a dam in the 88 Valley. This dam (which ran well over budget – surprisingly), has no water catchment and takes over 2 years to fill when emptied. It also drains through a swamp before the water makes its way to the river affecting the quality of water in the Wai-iti river.

The reservoir option sounds a lot like another stopgap measure that will provide short-term relief at the expense of the inevitable long-term requirement for the region.  That is 25 million (if on budget) plus the price of land purchase, on top of the millions spent in 88 valley, and still, we have the problem that the residential water supply is currently insufficient to meet current needs in dry years without accounting for future population growth.

There is no doubt that we need to meet the needs of irrigators, and soon before we have salt water intrusion into our aquifers. But can we afford to allocate another 25 million dollars on, at best, a 40-year stopgap?

I think Kit Maling is correct, we are better focusing on the dam that will future proof our water woes for years to come. Spend the money once and spend it right instead of throwing good money after bad.

What is needed is a better funding solution for the dam. Let us see some more creativity applied to that problem.

Your say?

 

Flooding Homes Needs A Vision

Council staff presented a report to council suggesting that the solution to people having their houses repeated flooded was “the development of a ‘Richmond Catchment Management Framework,'” which would be a good place to start one would imagine.  In fact, one would wonder what exactly council staff have been doing to date if they have not had a water management plan in effect? Flooding in Richmond

However, kudos for recognising that they need a management plan.  The key strategy or process that this plan revolves around one would assume to be of a constructive nature, given the time they have had to come up with a plan, one would logically conclude.  One would be wrong. The key element is, as Cherie Sivignon (Nelson Mail) reports, a “vision for the catchment.”

Oddly enough, a number of councillors thought research into a vision for water management was somewhat redundant.  The problem seems to be that every few years there is an abundance of water feeding into the catchment area that our current stormwater facilities are not able to cope with and homes and businesses end up flooded as a result. The vision surely should be managing water flows in the catchment area and upgrading the over capacitated outlet facilities.

Chief executive Lindsay McKenzie requested that the report is received  and staff be given an opportunity to reflect on the feedback. It will be interesting to hear how the feedback has resulted in constructive action from council staff, or if they hide behind more paperwork generation.

Another noteworthy outcome of the meeting appears to have been deputy mayor Tim King realising “It’s this disconnect we’ve got between what we think is important, what you’re telling us the community thinks is important and what they actually think is important.”

How many years has it taken the deputy mayor to realise that he has no idea what the community he is elected to represent actually wants?

 

 

 

Waimea Water Quality

Clean Green Tasman?

Remember how the Tasman District Council lost their fight to keep its secret contaminated site register under wraps?

It turns out that our record of preserving the integrity of our water is not a battle we are winning either.  The latest groundwater nitrate report shows little improvement and paints a bleak picture moving ahead.

The following excerpt is from the introduction of said  2005 WAIMEA PLAINS GROUNDWATER NITRATE SURVEY – REPORT EP05/11/11:

Over 90 groundwater samples were collected from the Waimea Plains aquifers between 19 May and 4 August 2005 and tested for nitrate. Well owners have been informed of their results. This survey was the fourth such plains wide survey of groundwater nitrate concentrations. Previous surveys were undertaken in 1986, 1994, and 1999/2000. . .Water Nitrate Levels
The most striking aspect to the data is the presence and persistence of areas of high nitrate concentration in the groundwater. Of all the bores sampled in the 2005 survey, 36% were above (i.e. did not comply with) the NZ drinking water standard of 11.3 g/m3-N.
Groundwater from the Waimea Plains is widely used. By volume irrigation is the predominant use, however, many households rely on groundwater for drinking water supplies, and a significant portion of the Richmond Municipal Water Supply is sourced from a bore field adjacent to Lower Queen Street.
The elevated nitrate concentrations encountered in the groundwaters of the Waimea Plains do not meet the groundwater quality required by Policies 33.1.3 and 33.1.4 and Schedule 36.1B of the TRMP. These policies require that the groundwater and land resources of the Waimea Plains are managed so that the groundwater is not contaminated so as to make it unpalatable or unsuitable for consumption by humans after treatment (equivalent to coagulation, filtration and disinfection). Nitrate contamination of water can not be readily treated by coagulation, filtration or disinfection. [emphasis mine]

If this is not concerning to those of you living in the affected drinking water area, it should also concern those who like eating fish, whitebait, and shellfish caught in or in the vicinity of the area. There are no practical treatment options for the removal of nitrate from groundwater.

Especially concerning, in case you missed it in the introduction, is the statement found in the summary: “There are no practical treatment options for the removal of nitrate from groundwater.”

In other words, this is not a problem that will go away unless we prevent it from occurring in the first place. It is especially pertinent as the problem crops up in another study.

The potential effects of the Lee dam on water quality are considered minor or able to be mitigated by providing flushing flows (up to three flushing flows over 5 m3/sec for >3 hours from November-April inclusive aimed at interrupting any periods of low flow >40 days) and good practice during dam construction (Young and Doehring, 2014). However, providing fish passage over the dam for red fin bully and longfin eel (downstream only with hydro-electric generation) will be challenging, and some off-set mitigation is recommended. There are potential indirect effects of the dam as more water available for irrigation could increase nitrogen leaching to groundwater, particularly on Ranzau soils where leaching rates are highest. Modelling (using SPASMO) has shown that, compared with nitrogen losses from current land uses, full irrigation within the Lee Dam service zone could increase nitrogen concentrations entering the groundwater by 23% and in a hypothetical worst case by up to 50% if the entire plains were converted to irrigated market gardening (Fenemor, 2013). These increases, however, are mitigated (diluted) by increased drainage rates to groundwater of 6% and 19% respectively caused by the increased irrigation. The effect of this on surface water would be most prominent in spring-fed streams in the lower Waimea Plains, particularly Neimann Creek.
2015 State of the Environment Water Quality Report information for the Waimea Water Management Area.

The dam itself may not be bad, but this study suggests that it will magnify our water nitrate issues (already failing the human consumption recommendations). I am not advocating that this means we should not build a dam, but I am advocating that we need to take the water nitrate issue seriously.

If we do not figure out a way of better managing nitrate levels before a dam is constructed then our clean and green image is going to be seriously tarnished by big hazard signs on waterways warning people not to drink the water. Remember we have no feasible method of treating nitrate infused water.

How seriously do you think the council should be taking this issue?

Do you think that no improvement between reports stretching back to at least 1986 reflects a council taking the issue serious enough?

 

 

Waste Of Dam Money

TDC Dam On The Agenda

But what is the agenda that TDC has with the dam?

With over-allocated water rights and increasing pressure on water resources from all sources, something will have to be done. Short of reducing water rights and implementing a rationing regime, there appears to be little option other than to create another supply.

No one wants to see a lack of water creating an economic bottleneck in the region. Nor does anyone want to face repeated water rationing becoming the norm in increasing duration. However, when it comes to paying for a dam we do not want burden ourselves with a debt that will soak up rates faster than el Nino on steroids.

So who pays for the dam?

The Government will chip in something (if we proceed during the right part of the election cycle). Then there are the commercial users such as forestry (because their trees are draining large areas of river catchment) and the lowland farmers, horticulturists, and gardeners.  Then, of course, there are the general ratepayers who like to swim in the river and fish in it (are there any fish left?).

Based on the current model of building a dam to let water run down the river in the hope it raises the aquifer levels that is the sole source of funding available. Just looking at those benefits it is hard to see how they can justify general Joe public facing much of a rate increase. Good luck to the commercial users surviving their fair share of the construction costs!

The currently proposed model will also do nothing to alleviate the shortfall of water that urban dwellers are facing each dry summer.  Anyone who has seen the rate of subdivision and construction growth around the Tasman area wouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist to speculate that our water crisis is not going away anytime soon.

Given these facts, it would seem short-sighted to invest the kind of money required to build a dam to flush water down the river without any consideration as to how we are going to meet the increasing demand for residential supply.  Explain that decision to future generations with no water, paying off the debt for the dam we built.

Another way to reduce the cost to individuals is to find more commercial end users. We do not even need to sell more water to do this. We can sell by-products such as electricity. I understand that council looked into working with electricity companies and none were interested. I would be interested in learning how many were approached and what deal was offered to them. Was a deal pitched to local industries? Was Mr Talley, turned down for consent to build a hydro-dam recently, not interested? Have we considered off-shore interests?

Suppose it was not viable to build a full-scale hydro-electric dam, were other alternatives given adequate consideration?

Portland municipal, for example, has teamed up with Lucid Energy to recoup some of their water supply expenditure.

I am sure our TDC monthly power bill could do with an energy injection.

Surely at the very least any TDC builds should have an outlet put in for future piping of the water should we need it, and in the meantime that outlet could be spinning some turbines while it lets water run down the riverbed.

What do you think?

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