Wellington City Councillors spent much of the day grilling Wellington Water on its shortcomings, but the company says it does not have adequate resources.
Wellington Water chief executive Colin Crampton faced questions from Wellington City Council today. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
A new report shows Wellington Water is taking, on average, 91 hours for flooding call outs to be fixed.
Similarly, it is taking almost three times as long for staff to attend a wastewater issue.
To fix a problem, staff are spending an average of 22 hours - far from its target of six.
Wellington Water chief executive Colin Crampton told the city council its system got overwhelmed as soon as demand spiked.
"Both Wellington City Council contact centre and Wellington Water are resourced to deliver business as usual responses... when we have a flooding event, that is not what we experience."
The low performace this quarter is also coinciding with its busiest time of year, having broken its call-out record for the month of Febuary.
"We are now getting people questioning whether Wellington Water can do the job that we need it to do," said councillor Iona Pannet, taking into account that "councillors need to do their part as well".
Pannet asked Wellington Water if they could assure Wellingtonians their water issues would improve.
Crampton said the council was part of that equation.
"The question you're asking is to council and Wellington Water, because you're the asset owner and we're the asset operator".
He said if Wellington Water was resourced adequately and worked with council well, the issues could be fixed.
Mayor Andy Foster said funding hds been "lifted significantly" for Wellington water issues in recent years.
"We did that urgently in 2020 in the annaul plan, and dramatically in 2021 with the long term plan," he said.
Last year, council agreed to invest $2.4billion over 10 years into the water network.
"I think we all know there is more to go," Foster said.
Earlier this week, other councils in the Wellington Region, which also have a stake in Wellington Water, said they were managing the water company just fine because they were spending more.
Any sewage oveflow 'simply unacceptable'
The report also says it is now "unachievable" for the city to be free from sewage overflows, which did not sit well with councillors.
The city council has a set upon target of zero, down from the regional standard of 20 overflows per 1000 sewerage connections.
Just in this quarter, Wellington city has had just shy of two overflows per 1000 connections,
Liz Kelly, Ngāti Toa Rangatira representative on council, refused to accept Wellington Water's defeat.
"We're spending millions of dollars, and there needs to be a solution somewhere," she said.
"I'm really annoyed that a report can come through like the one that has and we're supposed to accept it."
All councillors agreed to maintain its target of zero, and that both the council and Wellington Water should do "whatever it takes" to keep any sewage from the waterways.
Wellington Water has said dry weather sewage overflows - where sewage pipes were blocked and then offset into the stromwater system, destined for the moana - was because of the city's ageing infrastructure and people flushing things not meant to be flushed.
Council needs to take blame for fluoride failure
Despite the fluoride issue not being on this committee agenda, councillors took opportunity to ask and comment on it.
Wellington's water company revealed it stopped adding fluoride to the water supply last year.
An independent inquiry has been launched into the matter.
Infrastructure committee chair Councillor Sean Rush said, as a father of young children, it concerned him that there had been inconsistent fluoride.
"I will make that apology on behalf of at least this committee and I'm sure from the whole council," he said.
"In the end, we can talk about it being Wellington Water's fault, or Greater Wellington [Regional Council's] fault, but actually - we are Wellington City Council, it is our fault, and we need to do something to fix it."
Councillor Teri Oneill said the council needed to look into the impacts of the lack of fluoride out in the community.
She said she had heard of children as young as two getting their teeth removed.
Wrapping up the Q&A with Wellington Water, councillor Rush said that "Wellington Water on a good day is an outstanding machine" .
But Rush also acknowledged "some s--t has happened".