Emergency Water Supply Decision Too Close To Elections

A decision to secure Invercargill’s emergency water supply as early as mid-2027 at a cost of $18 million was lost by a narrow margin yesterday.

Seven councillors were against the motion put by Infrastructure and Projects Committee chair Grant Dermody, to crack on with the Awarua business case as soon as possible.

Included in the discussion was concerns from councillors, led by Lesley Soper, that the magnitude of the decision had significant risk factors, including moving that money forward into 2026/7 of the Long Term Plan.

“I’m not comfortable with a very major, more than major, decision about our LTP so close to the election,” she said.

Residents would be looking at a significant rates increase as a result (up to 2%), but it meant the city could access an emergency water supply much sooner.

A report to the committee from senior contract manager Alistair Snow said, the Invercargill City Council oversees a drinking water system that supports over 55,000 residents and numerous businesses, all relying on a singular source from the Ōreti River with the network storage capacity of nominally two days. 

The singular supply dependency poses a severe risk in the event of a prolonged drought or contamination, although the likelihood of this event is low, the consequence of it would be catastrophic including immediate threats to public health and safety of residents.

The search for an alternate supply for the city has been underway for more than a decade. 

In the past 18 months a comprehensive business case was completed, with two options - 1. prioritising emergency supply access by mid-2027, and 2. proceeding with an adaptive consent application, continue monitoring of the aquifer capacity and environmental effects - set down for 2030.

Cr Dermody was not keen on waiting any longer, and also said it was a big ask for the incoming council to absorb all of the technical information from the business case.

A second motion to go forward with option two - which would take three years long, won the majority vote.

That was despite feedback received through the Alternate Water Supply Workshop, which indicated council wished to explore options to lodge a consent application and establish an emergency supply as soon as possible.