One of the greatest challenges for our city, and our country, is future-proofing our waters services.
Getting water, wastewater and stormwater right underpins everything we do in the city. It’s critical for public health, economic development and looking after our environment, not just for existing communities but those of the future.
There’s no question costs for our future water services will increase in Hamilton, and across the country.
What we need to do is find the structures that offer the best value for ratepayers and make the most of every dollar.
As a major city experiencing rapid growth, Hamilton faces major funding and financial pressures.
We need greater investment to maintain our networks and upgrade them for growth.
Current funding tools don’t allow councils to borrow what we need or spread this cost over long periods.
We are mindful that any waters delivery solution for Hamilton must support Te Ture Whaimana - the legislated vision and strategy for the health of the Waikato River.
Through Local Water Done Well, Government is supporting greater efficiency in waters management nationwide. It will mean fundamental change, but it’s needed.
The best outcome for Hamilton is likely to be one which realises the benefits of a boundaryless approach across the wider region. This will support the best land use, transport, development, and sustainability outcomes.
Our water services
We take raw water from the Waikato River into our single water treatment plant, where it is treated to provide high-quality drinking water. We treat on average, around 65 million litres of water every single day, or around 750litres per second.
To protect our river system and provide for everyone along it, Hamilton has limits on how much water we can take from the river. Our current consent expires in 2044. At current usage, we’ll need more than our consent allows before then, so we have to get smarter about using water wisely and reducing waste.
Water treatment plants use complex scientific systems to screen, filter and disinfect before it is ready for Hamiltonians to drink. Our drinking water is safe, meets all applicable standards, has multiple barriers against potential contamination and is monitored continuously.
Once the water is treated and ready to drink, massive underground pipes (water mains) are used to transport the water to storage tanks (water reservoirs). Our drinking water reservoirs are used to store the water so there is enough to use throughout the day. The busiest times for water use are in the morning when people wake up and shower, and again in the evenings when people cook dinner, shower and water the garden.
All the water we supply to more than 60,000 properties through our city system is treated drinking water. This includes the water people use for watering their gardens or washing the car, so careful use of this resource, especially over summer is important. At peak times in summer, our demand for drinking water is almost double our winter average.
Water we use from this supply, other than outdoor use, ends up in our wastewater network.
Our wastewater network
Our wastewater is more than just the waste from flushing our toilets. It includes all the ‘used’ water from household kitchens, bathrooms, and laundries, and from business and industry. To protect our environment and public health we need to contain and manage wastewater.
It’s a team effort between council and the community to make sure we don’t put the wrong things into our wastewater system, to improve and maintain our pipes and pumping stations, build resilience and storage capacity for weather events and peak flows, and support sustainable residential and economic growth.
Our network includes around 900km of pipes, more than 130 pumping stations and six major pipeline bridges.
All the wastewater from more than 64,000 connections flows to our Pukete Wastewater Treatment Plant and is treated to a high standard before being released into the Waikato River.
Waikato Te Awa has special cultural and historical importance to iwi. Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato (Vision and Strategy for the Waikato River) has a vision for a future where a healthy Waikato River sustains abundant life and prosperous communities who, in turn are all responsible for restoring and protecting the health and wellbeing of the Waikato River and all it embraces, for generations to come.
We have multiple systems to protect our environment from the impacts of wastewater overflows and a major part of our investment is maintaining our pipes and plant, as well as building new storage facilities to make our network more resilient.
Our stormwater network
Heavy rain can increase the flows in our wastewater network, and climate change is likely to increase the impacts and frequency of heavy rain events.
Our stormwater system is designed to manage flows from rainfall across the city, which flows into gutters and into the pipe system before being released into the Waikato River and other Hamilton waterways.
Stormwater is not treated, so it's important our systems and processes minimise the effects of stormwater on the environment.
Our stormwater network includes collection, conveyance, treatment, and discharge services.
We have more than 700km of pipes in a system which includes ponds, wetlands, and open watercourses, to collect and release rainwater into the city’s waterways.