Auckland could emerge as a new user of millions of dollars of Whangārei water formerly taken by Marsden Point Oil Refinery.
Refinery at Marsden Point. Photo: Northern Advocate / Michael Cunninghm
That is from a member of the three waters working group that has just released its recommendations for how the controversial overhaul of water services is managed.
Tukoroirangi Morgan, who was also a former Waikato River Authority co-chair, said the availability of the water that previously went to Marsden Point, placed Northland in a strong position on potential three waters restructuring.
This would combine Whangārei, Far North and Kaipara District councils with Auckland Council into a giant top-of- New Zealand water services entity A, for the provision of drinking, waste and storm water.
Morgan said Auckland had a lot of interest in sourcing ongoing water needs from beyond its city.
Close to five million litres of water a day is being taken by the Marsden Point Oil Refinery for the steam used throughout the refining process.
This would stop in just over three weeks when the last refining was done at the plant. Whangārei District Council (WDC) would lose $25 million in water rates income over the next decade as a result.
Morgan said having the water that would have been used by the refinery available, put Northland's three councils in a strong position in the proposed new top of New Zealand water services Entity A.
He said Auckland had always had a big interest in trying to get as much water as it could from beyond its boundary and that was good news for Northland.
Auckland has been taking water from the Waikato River since the eighties. A board of inquiry appointed by the Minister for the Environment on 21 January gave the green light for Auckland's Watercare to double its daily water take from the river to 300 million litres a day.
The government is proposing four giant inter-regional water serices entities. The top of New Zealand Entity A neighbours Entity B, the home of the Waikato River.
Morgan said Auckland would not however be exiting Entity A and shifting to Entity B as a result.
"There has to be some collaboration across boundaries in order to service and sustain ourselves going forward," Morgan said.
He said the interregional nature of water supply sources such as the Waikato River for Auckland meant the government's proposed new four new water services entities made sense.
Morgan said decisions on who would pay for the infrastructure to get the water to Auckland would be made by the proposed regional representative groups.
Contention over the makeup of these groups was a major driver in the government setting up a formal working group in December. It was briefed with looking at governance, representation and accountability, among major restructure sticking points. Morgan is a working group member.
He said the regional representative group for Entity A would have 14 members. These would be made up of a representative from each of Northland's three district councils, three Northland iwi representatives, along with four members each from Tāmaki Makarau iwi and Auckland council.
He said Northland having three iwi members representing five iwi was appropriate. There would be a degree of collective representation. Entity B had more than 40 iwi with representatives to be chosen from among these.
Co-governance would be a key feature of the new three waters model, which put the Te Mana o te Wai concept of water quality and sustainability, at its heart.
The working group's recommendations to address the widepread national representation, governance and accountability concerns have been given to Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta.
Working group chair Doug Martin urged the government to take its recommendations on board.
Among them were public shares for councils to help address concerns over Three Waters infrastructure ownerhsip. It was also proposing a new regional sub-group layer to sit under the regional representative group. Its purpose would be to strengthen local input into the more-removed representation group's decision making.
A water ombudsman had also been proposed to help address individual consumers' concerns about the new water services entities.
Local Democracy Reporting is Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air