By Nigel Billings, Senior Policy Advisor Federated Farmers
Government’s efforts to centralize council drinking water, stormwater, and wastewater assets into four regional entities has caused much alarm, with the common view being that it is a form of state-sanctioned robbery.
While this reform began as an opt-in or opt-out proposition, the recent move to make it compulsory has certainly bought the Government a fight with their local counterparts.
For rural communities there is concern and anger that, while private schemes will not be taken, those that are run by councils – often with ownership disputed between councils and scheme committees – will be.
The prospect of dealing with a major regional water entity remote from local communities and knowledge is not at all appetizing.
Federated Farmers have made clear our strong opposition to this.
Separate to this, but a key part of the reforms, relates to the regulation of water supplies with a new water regulator, Taumata Arowai, replacing the Ministry of Health.
This did not attract much opposition, but the new regulatory framework in the form of the Water Services Act 2021 certainly did.
Under the Act, anyone who supplies drinking water to another dwelling (not if they supply just their own dwelling) will be required to register as a water supplier.
Federated Farmers advocated long and hard to get suppliers to less than 50 people exempted, but in the end our efforts mainly resulted in timeframe extensions: for registration of small suppliers from one to four years, and compliance from five to seven.
Also of some merit is that compliance for small suppliers will be to an “acceptable solution” that will not require source to tap treatment, rather treatment at the endpoint of supply to a dwelling.
Acceptable solutions will be consulted early in the 2022 year.
