Southland District Council has about 32,000km of water pipes — and doesn't know where all of them are.
Strategic manager water and waste Kevin Johnson made the admission at a council meeting on Wednesday, when he updated elected members on the district's water services network.
Asked how many kilometres of pipes the council managed, Johnson confirmed the 32,000km figure, then added a caveat that will raise eyebrows. "There's so much of it over such a large land surface area, one of the preliminaries that we have to carry out in some locations is to actually establish what the pipe network is, where it is, and who owns it."
The council has inherited schemes from more than 50 years ago, some with incomplete records. Johnson said he felt the council had a solid understanding of townships like Te Anau, Lumsden and Winton, but acknowledged the discovery of unknown pipes was still ongoing. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that, but I'm being honest."
It's a significant admission for a district that covers one of the largest land areas of any council in New Zealand. Unaccounted infrastructure is a liability — financially and practically — and the scale of the problem won't be clear until the network is fully mapped.
There was better news elsewhere in Johnson's report. National water regulator Taumata Arowai data showed Southland District Council tied for the fewest wastewater overflows per 100km of pipe in the country — recording just one. Gore District Council scored two. Invercargill City Council had eight.
At the other end of the scale, Waitaki District Council logged 91 overflows per 100km. That puts Southland's performance in sharp relief.