Part 5: Implementing relevant legislation and national and regional policies

5.1
In this Part, we discuss the eight local authorities' progress with implementing:

• the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007;
• the drinking water standards;
• the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Sources of Human Drinking Water) Regulations 2007; and
• the Proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management.

We also discuss the local authorities' compliance with national and regional policies and plans.

5.2
We expected the eight local authorities to be aware of, and be taking steps to implement, legislation and national policies affecting the supply of drinking water. We also expected them to be complying with regional plans under the Resource Management Act 1991.

Our overall findings

5.3
All eight local authorities had met national and regional planning requirements for supplying drinking water.

5.4
All eight local authorities were making steady progress in preparing the public health risk management plans required by the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007. A recent extension of deadlines has given them more time to fully comply with the Act's requirements.

5.5
All eight local authorities had assessed what they need to do to comply with the drinking water standards. They were making changes and spending more on supplying drinking water because of those assessments. Five of the local authorities need to upgrade their infrastructure, especially the local authorities that had previously had poor water quality gradings.

5.6
All of the eight local authorities held the relevant resource consents for their drinking water supplies.

Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007

All eight local authorities were aware of, and taking steps to implement, the requirements of the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007. The eight local authorities were making steady progress in preparing the required public health risk management plans and, after a recent extension of deadlines, should be able to meet the statutory deadline for the plans.

5.7
Under the Health (Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2007, all suppliers that provide drinking water to communities of more than 500 people must prepare and start to implement a public health risk management plan to guide the safe management of their drinking water supply. These plans will affect how drinking water is supplied to meet future demand because they relate to the quality of the water that is supplied. Implementing the plans might mean an investment in upgraded infrastructure.

5.8
Suppliers have staggered deadlines for compliance, spread over several years and based on the size of the population served by the drinking water supply. In June 2009, the Government extended the original deadlines by three years, effective from 1 July 2009, to ease the financial burden on local authorities.

5.9
Figure 9 provides a summary of the progress that the eight local authorities have made in preparing public health risk management plans. It also shows the deadlines for having those plans prepared and approved.

5.10
Five of the eight local authorities have water supply systems that supply drinking water to communities with more than 10,000 people (see Appendix 1 for more information). Of the five, three have made excellent progress (Christchurch City Council, Kapiti Coast District Council, and Tauranga City Council) because they have plans for those systems approved by drinking water assessors from the Ministry of Health. Nelson City Council has yet to prepare a plan. Tasman District Council has yet to get the plan for its large supply approved.

5.11
Six of the eight local authorities have water supply systems that supply drinking water to smaller communities (less than 10,000 people). Of the six, Central Otago District Council and Christchurch City Council have made excellent progress and have plans approved for all of their supplies. South Taranaki District Council has draft plans prepared for almost all of its supplies. Opotiki District Council and Tasman District Council have prepared draft plans for some but not all of their systems. Kapiti Coast District Council has yet to prepare plans for its smaller supply systems. Because the deadlines have been extended, the local authorities now have time to comply.

Figure 9
Progress of the eight local authorities in preparing public health risk management plans for drinking water supply systems

5.12
The approved plans demonstrate a detailed approach to identifying and managing the risks to supplying drinking water. However, it is too soon for us to form a view about the effectiveness of the local authorities' efforts to implement those plans.

5.13
Opotiki District Council and Central Otago District Council have been encouraged to prepare public health risk management plans by the opportunity to apply for financial assistance from the Ministry of Health to upgrade their drinking water supplies. Drinking water supplies that serve communities of fewer than 5000 people and are owned by local authorities are eligible for capital assistance, if they meet certain criteria. The criteria include having approved public health risk management plans.

Drinking water standards

All eight local authorities have assessed what they need to do to comply with the drinking water standards. Those assessments had contributed to the changes the local authorities were making and their increased expenditure on supplying drinking water. Five of the local authorities need to upgrade their infrastructure, especially those that have previously received poor grades for their water quality.

5.14
The drinking water standards govern the quality of the drinking water provided to consumers. They prescribe the maximum allowable concentrations of potentially harmful contaminants in the water. Drinking water suppliers have a duty to take all practicable steps to provide water of a quality consistent with the drinking water standards. Figure 10 summarises the drinking water grades for the eight local authorities. (Appendix 3 includes full definitions of these grades.)

5.15
Local authorities are not required to achieve a particular grade, but five local authorities have chosen to aim for specific grades as part of their approach to service delivery. This decision will affect their strategies to meet the forecast demand for drinking water, because the strategies need to include how the desired water quality will be achieved.

Figure 10
Current and previous drinking water standard grades for the eight local authorities

Note: Under the drinking water standards, "A" grades are considered completely satisfactory, "B" grades are satisfactory, "C" grades are marginally satisfactory, "D" grades are unsatisfactory, and "E" grades are unacceptable.

5.16
Of the eight local authorities, one (Nelson City Council) already complies with the drinking water standards. Tauranga City Council is complying with the standards at one of its water treatment plants, and needs only minor improvements to its monitoring equipment at the second water treatment plant. Some water supplies provided by Christchurch City Council comply with the standards, but the Banks Peninsula supplies do not and need upgraded infrastructure to do so.

5.17
The other five local authorities all need to upgrade their infrastructure, especially those local authorities that have previously had their water graded as "C" or lower. A common reason for low grades is that water sources are not secure, so the water needs more treatment to remove the risk of a wider range of contaminants.

5.18
The planning that local authorities are doing to comply with the drinking water standards is driving change and investment in how they supply their drinking water. The local authorities have identified the need for infrastructure upgrades to comply with drinking water standards. We further discuss the strategies that these local authorities have planned for complying with the drinking water standards in Part 6.

Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Sources of Human Drinking Water) Regulations 2007

All eight local authorities are aware of the National Environmental Standard. However, because they are not primarily responsible for implementing it, it has not yet started to influence how they manage the supply of drinking water.

5.19
Regional councils are primarily responsible for implementing the Resource Management (National Environmental Standards for Sources of Human Drinking Water) Regulations 2007 (the National Environmental Standard).⁵

5.20
The National Environmental Standard aims to reduce the risk of contamination of drinking water supplies by requiring regional councils to consider the effects of certain activities on drinking water sources. It does this by requiring regional councils to decline applications for discharge and water permits that could result in drinking water becoming unsafe for human consumption, and by preventing the inclusion of permitted activity rules in regional plans, if they will cause drinking water to still be unsafe to drink after the existing treatment processes. It should provide opportunities for drinking water suppliers to influence catchment management in areas they take water from, to reduce the potential for contamination and subsequent treatment requirements.

5.21
Seven of the eight local authorities were paying some attention to water catchment management, but it was limited. Only Tauranga City Council had made a commitment to preparing a water catchment management plan.

The Proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management

5.22
Under the Resource Management Act 1991, the Ministry for the Environment has proposed a national policy statement for freshwater management. The purpose of the Proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management is to set out some national objectives and policies for managing freshwater resources. At the time of our audit, it was moving through a submission and hearing process and was not yet operative.

5.23
The Proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management includes a draft policy that is aimed at giving "priority for reasonably foreseeable domestic water supply, over other competing demands, provided that appropriate demand strategies are established for such supply".⁶ This will be of benefit to drinking water suppliers in areas where there is strong competition for access to water, because it should help to ensure that their access to water is protected when need be.

Complying with relevant national and regional policies and plans

All of the eight local authorities held the relevant resource consents required under the Resource Management Act 1991.

5.24
Under the Resource Management Act 1991, regional councils are responsible for managing freshwater. That responsibility includes allocating water, and responsibility for the quality of the freshwater. Regional policy statements and regional plans set out the framework for this.

5.25
Resource consents are usually required for taking water for drinking water supply, but the specific requirements vary from region to region according to the provisions of regional plans.

5.26
All eight local authorities held the relevant resource consents for their drinking water supply activities. There were some instances of non-compliance with consent conditions in one local authority (South Taranaki District Council).

5: Statutory regulation 2007/396.

6: Policy 1(i)(ii). Ministry for the Environment (2008), Proposed National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, Ministry for the Environment, Wellington, page 5.