No I did not make an error in the last post either…. In my very recent Southern Line EMU Roll Out is March 2015 (April 9) post I noted the roll out of … Continue reading EMU Roll Out Dates Changed Again?
8,900 counted so far I sent a question away to Auckland Council on how many submissions for the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan (PAUP) as news around the PAUP has … Continue reading 8,900 Submissions to the Unitary Plan
Where is our disconnect with youth and employment? Yesterday Mayor Len Brown kicked off a Youth Summit in the CBD to illustrate the high youth unemployment problem in Auckland, … Continue reading Youth Connect – Our Youth Disconnect
A week ago I critiqued Watercare (who provide our fresh and waster water services in Auckland) on their decision around a recycled storm-water scheme in Stonefields. You can read it here: Patch Protecting or Genuine Concerns?
This morning I noticed (and a few others) the editorial for the Herald this morning commenting again on the recycled storm-water scheme. Lets take a look bit by bit from the editorial this morning shall we?
Stonefields, a village-style residential development in what was the Mt Wellington quarry, has branded itself with environmental “sustainability”. The basis of that brand was a dual water supply. Every house built so far has both a drinking-water supply and a “third pipe”, bringing surface water from a central reservoir to toilets and outside taps. The system may have saved water from the metropolitan supplier, Watercare Services, but saving water is not the supplier’s prime concern.
Many, in fact, will suspect the monopoly supplier’s refusal to operate Stonefields’ scheme as intended is motivated by the simple desire to maximise its revenue. Not so, says Watercare. The scheme, it says, would have cost Stonefields residents more than they will pay for the normal water supply. And since the groundwater collected for the third pipe would not have been treated to the same standard, it would have been charging those residents more for a supply of lower quality.
Common sense is probably on the side of Watercare. Surface run-off, especially from roads, is polluted. It was going to have to be treated as it was pumped from Stonefields’ collection tank to the reservoir, though not to a drinkable standard. The company says the cost of collection, treatment and pumping would have resulted in Stonefields residents paying five times the cost of Auckland’s potable water. And most of the third-pipe water would be flushed into the same second pipe, where it would need sewage treatment and disposal
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“Many, in fact, will suspect the monopoly supplier’s refusal to operate Stonefields’ scheme as intended is motivated by the simple desire to maximise its revenue.” When you read the rest of the editorial I wonder but not help that is “bending the truth” to a wide degree.
What would be nice if the editorial posted some hard figures on the actual cost Watercare is purporting for the third pipe recycled storm-water scheme. Costs that include both the set and operations of such a facility in comparison to the normal set up we already get. Then for good measure some comparative costs from overseas as well as the private sector to see if the scheme is not value for money as Watercare (and the Herald) claim
I also note saving water is not Watercare’s main concern. Well no if it is out to maximise income and profits which is telling as we further get down the editorial.
Cost is not the only consideration. Enthusiasts for third-pipe water conservation ought to consider what would be lost. This is a country in which the water is safe to drink. To slake a thirst, we turn on the nearest tap without a qualm. That would change if not all piped water could be trusted. The outside taps at Stonefields were to carry a sign that the water was not safe to drink. Do we really want that?
The former Auckland City Council ought to have thought of all these practicalities before it invoked principles of sustainability and made third-pipe reticulation a feature of Stonefields’ development consent. Its own water retailer, Metrowater, was going to run the system. But for the Super City’s creation, and the bulk supplier’s takeover of the whole system, the true costs of “sustainability” might never have been known.
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I assume whoever wrote this has never been around much as plenty of outside taps (not drinking fountains) even in urban Auckland carry the Do Not Drink sign above the said tap. And can someone tell me – who races to the garden hose and drinks out of it – regularly? So a really weak excuse here in that section of the editorial.
Thanks to the Waikato River, Auckland will never be short of water. There is no point conserving the water for its own sake if it must be replaced by a costly supply of inferior standard, no matter how interesting or exciting the environmental engineering involved.
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I am quite sure the people of the Waikato – especially those who use or treasure the river will be quite comforted that Auckland will never be short of water thanks to Watercare drawing water from there and then pumping it to Auckland after it treated – NOT. I am aware Watercare are seeking consent to double the amount of water intake from the Waikato River to pump into a growing Auckland. This consent process has riled the people of the Waikato as the extra intake will no doubt put strain on New Zealand’s longest river. It is of note the lower Waikato is reliant on rainfall, Lake Taupo and the Waipa River for its water flow – and it is certainly not unlimited either. Just look what happens when our South Island hydro stations get dry years and the knock on effects downstream…
Now if you want a contradiction then check this last bit from the editorial
More water falls on Auckland than the city can use. Only a fraction of Stonefields’ storm water was to be channelled into the third pipe. Most would have drained to the Tamaki inlet. Reducing stormwater pollution of the sea around Auckland is the real challenge. Collecting tanks and treatment may be the answer, and if the water can be put to a cost-effective use, all the better. But recycling for a needless purpose at greater cost is not sustainable.
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Okay so more water falls on Auckland than we can use yet we get 10% of our total supply from the Waikato with Watercare wanting to increase that to 18% of total supply. Auckland also in 1994 suffered a drought which eventually led to the Waikato pipeline being built in the first place so that Auckland would not be faced with a similar situation again. So which way is it? We get enough rain that we do not need the Waikato, or is Auckland that large that we need the Waikato to supplement our dams.
In any case the real question that begs to be asked is ‘who actually wrote the editorial?’ Watercare or the NZ Herald themselves…
Hearings Begin on Warkworth Section of Holiday Highway
The Herald has noted that the Board of Enquiry gets under way today for the Puhoi-Warkworth section of the Puhoi-Welsford Roads of National Significance Program otherwise known as the Holiday Highway.
Fast-tracking of $760m extension to be considered over 14 days.
Plans for one of the country’s most expensive transport projects – a $760 million extension of Auckland’s motorway network to Warkworth – go under the microscope today.
A board of inquiry appointed for fast-tracking planning consideration of the 18.5km extension as the first half of a Road of National Significance will preside over 14 days of hearings.
The Government is promoting the extension over 12 viaducts and bridges from the Johnstones Hill traffic tunnels south of Puhoi to a new roundabout north of Warkworth, as a vital freight and tourism link with Northland.
Even so, many of the 14,000 vehicles a day expected to use the new road by 2026 will double back to Warkworth’s often bottlenecked Hill St turnoff to eastern beaches.
That keeps critics such as Auckland Council infrastructure chairman Mike Lee calling it “the holiday highway” to the intense annoyance of Northland leaders and former Rodney mayor Penny Webster.
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There will only be one traffic interchange between Orewa and Warkworth, to be confined to just south-facing ramps at Puhoi, after residents protested against an earlier plan which would have denied them access.
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So you will need to double back and still get held up at the notorious Hill Road intersection at Warkworth in order to get to the eastern beaches. That in itself is rather self-defeating.
In any case the Holiday Highway even if fully completed as the gold-plated 4-lane motorway would still fall well short of where it would need to be if it were to serve the population and industrial centres of Northland. You would need to take the motorway all the way to Whangarei itself to get the “benefits” you would be sort after – much like the 4-lane expressway Auckland to Hamilton and Cambridge.
Ironically there has been two more cheaper but more beneficial transport schemes to connect Auckland up to Northland than the Holiday Highway. One is Operation Lifesaver devised by Transport Blog, the other is to fully upgrade the North Auckland (rail) Line from Swanson to Whangarei with a branch line to Marsden Point (home of a deep water port and our oil refinery) to allow our more powerful DL’s to haul longer trains from the area south (like logs).
You can read about Operation Lifesaver as an alternative to the Holiday Highway HERE.
Operation Lifesaver I believe follows the same premise as the upgrades to State Highway 2 that have happened and are going to continue to happen again soon. You can read what NZTA has done and what it will be up to with State Highway 2 here: Safety Improvements for State Highway 2. Once the upgrades are complete that section of State Highway 2 (which carries more regular, holiday and freight traffic than the Holiday Highway ever would) will allow that traffic to travel efficiently and safely to their destinations. So if these kind of simple upgrades to a much busier State Highway 2 are effective why does State Highway 1 going north need to be a 4-lane Motorway that does not really go the distance it would need to? And these upgrades to State Highway 2 are very similar to what Operation Lifesaver proposes.
Lets hope this Board of Inquiry puts the Holiday Highway under the same intense microscope as it did to a Wellington Highway project last month. And cross fingers the Board of Inquiry might start shifting us away from this motorway to something more viable that will not break the bank…
Herald being disingenuous again I noted from the Herald’s property writer Anne Gibson that apparently high rises are heading for our suburbs in Auckland and that people are “alarmed.” … Continue reading High Rises are NOT Heading for the Burbs
Talking Southern Auckland 