Hamilton City Council will offer tours of its Waiora water treatment plant to help people understand the challenges of upgrading and maintaining essential waters infrastructure.

The tours, part of a Your Neighbourhood event on Saturday 5 April, will also spotlight the Council’s proposal to form a joint waters company with Waikato District Council.

In December last year, both councils agreed forming a joint water company, a council-controlled organisation (CCO), was the best option to build and manage water infrastructure in the future.

Both councils acknowledge the fiscal stress of delivering millions of dollars of water infrastructure, particularly for high-growth councils. A CCO would allow those costs to be spread more fairly across generations of ratepayers and over time, save money. It would also allow big infrastructure to be built faster, irrespective of council boundaries.

Hamilton Mayor Paula Southgate said Infrastructure New Zealand estimates that across the country, more than $200 billion was needed over 30 years “just to catch up” on the national waters infrastructure deficit.

“It’s eye-watering. Ratepayers simply can’t afford to fund it and the government is right to be requiring fundamental change,” she said. “New Zealand doesn’t have a choice.”

Hamilton is in a better position than some with ongoing investment, few compliance issues and excellent drinking water, she said.

“We invest $150 million annually in our city to deliver drinking water and treat wastewater and have continued to invest in core waters infrastructure. But we are really challenged by how much development our existing network can cope with and financially, we have to prioritise.”

In the last three years, Council has completed $909 million worth of capital projects including $56 million of upgrades to the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants. That includes investing $15.6 million at the Waiora treatment plant which treats the entire city’s drinking water – about 720 litres per second.

The Waiora plant tours will support a government-required consultation exercise which requires all councils to put forward at least two options for managing future water services. Hamilton’s second option, forming an in-house business unit to manage water, is not supported by councillors or staff.

On Thursday (20 March) Hamilton councillors will also discuss the requirement to begin a process to recruit a three-person Establishment Board for the company, should a CCO proceed. No appointments to the Board could be made unless, having considered public submissions,both councilsdecide to establish a joint waters company.Finaldecisionswill not be made until June this year.

© Scoop Media