Iain Rabbitts: Improving our municipal water supplies is taking too long 30 Nov, 2018 5:00am 4 minutes to read
There is no change in the risk to public health around the country.
There may be a few suppliers on the edge of compliance whose status will improve, but it is unlikely any improvement in testing will make a real difference to the level of public health risk from drinking water.
A white paper published on Tuesday signals significant change is coming.
Within the industry there is much support for reform.
As David Cull, president of Local Government NZ and mayor of Dunedin, said, "We accept change is needed – our 20th century service delivery model cannot cope with current and future population and land use pressures."
I doubt any organisation or water professional would disagree, or with the proposal for an independent regulator — one with broad powers to ensure both compliance with the drinking water standards and the accountability of decision makers.
I believe there is also general agreement that the capability and capacity of water suppliers across the country needs to be improved, and that funding for infrastructure needs to be significantly increased.
Given all this agreement, why is there so much angst over water reform?
We must have all opinions out in the open and have an adult discussion about what is the best way to ensure that all New Zealanders have access to safe drinking water.

MORE than 20 million people still face the problem of safe drinking water although the Awami League in its 2008 national elections manifesto, iterated in the 2014 manifesto, pledged safe drinking water for the entire population by 2011.
Yet salinity and arsenic contamination still remain major challenges for the government to meet seven years after the deadline.
The Department of Public Health Engineering seeks to claim that 87 per cent of the people have access to safe drinking water, considering the availability of water within 150 metres.
A public health engineering official is reported to be saying that a report in 2015 shows that 87 per cent of the people are under the safe water coverage, keeping to the Millennium Development Goals, but the same report in 2017 shows the coverage to benefit 56 per cent of the population as the Sustainable Development Goals has changed the definition of safe water.
WaterAid Bangladesh says that more than four million people are still out of the basic water coverage because of salinity, arsenic contamination and poor supply network.
Moreover, despite the government’s mitigation of arsenic contamination by a good measure, dropping from 23 per cent in 1993 to 12 per cent in 2014, salinity increased in a vast area that covers 19 districts.
The phenomenon, largely attributed to effects of climate change, forces a day-labourer who earns Tk 200 a day to spend Tk 20 on water every day.
A former DPHE chief engineer, referring to the multiple indicator cluster survey that the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF conduct, says that 1.90 million people living in 61 districts are still at risk of arsenic contamination.
A World Bank report in 2016 shows that 22 per cent of the tube wells of the country have arsenic contamination.
The ruling party’s election pledges about safe drinking water for all by 2011 have failed, as the government has not made much of efforts on the front, making them nothing but political rhetoric.

BRYAN, Tex (KBTX) – The biggest improvement is the removal of the "Extreme Drought" category from the entire Brazos Valley.
Leon and Robertson counties have edged out that nasty red color and are now in "Severe Drought".
It is possible that category is somewhat wiped away with this past week’s and this coming weekend’s expected rain, too.
The back and forth "Abnormally Dry" for the southern half of the area has swung to the good side once again this week, and we don’t expect that yellow color to return within the next couple weeks.
Across the state: General improvement in our neck of the woods, while some of the "Extreme Drought" was just a displaced a little farther west.
Areas along the coast were removed from the "Abnormally Dry" category, and shouldn’t be put back in that range for a while thanks to expected rain in the coming days.
The U.S. Drought Monitor, established in 1999, is a weekly map of drought conditions produced jointly by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
The U.S. Drought Monitor website is hosted and maintained by the drought center.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Ohio EPA is considering funding a project in Youngstown that would change the city’s sewer systems, improve a parking lot, modify the Covelli Centre Pond and remove contaminated materials.
The funding would be available through the Water Pollution Control Loan Fund program and would help Youngstown in its plan to reroute, create and abandon some of the city’s current sewer systems.
The city’s long-term plan is to connect a new sanitary sewer network to a future, proposed tunnel under the Mahoning River and its wastewater treatment plant.
It would then abandon the temporary connection.
The on-going project would abandon about 2550 lineal feet of existing sanitary sewers and manholes.
There would also be site restoration.
The estimated cost of this related project is $16.3 million.
It is scheduled to be designed by spring 2020 and constructed by fall 2025.
The public has through August 27 to review the assessment and provide comments.
The assessment is available here.

A water main that broke in front of the Furniture Plus store at 329 Fairview Ave. on March 20.
That repair so far cost the town $3,900.
The town is proposing to replace 13,900 feet of aging water pipe at an estimated cost of $4.26 million.

THE new vision of our municipality stipulates that by the year 2035, the district municipality will provide adequate access to basic services in an efficient and sustainable manner, enhancing the quality of its citizens in an inclusive progressive economy.
We also deliver services guided by a mission that says that as a water services authority, we will ensure that all our communities have access to quality drinking water, decent sanitation and sustainable economic opportunities underpinned by the active participation of our citizens in exemplary government.
Over the years, our municipality has made remarkable progress in the delivery of water and sanitation services.
However, we cannot stay still at the comfort of these achievements as voices of our communities are still echoing.
Our efforts to expand and improve the access of our services to our communities continue.
It is therefore against this background of our efforts to improve water supply and sanitation services that we have implemented a water supply improvement project for the Qinabout, Thembelihle and Chibini areas in the outskirts of the Gamalakhe area.
This upgrade process commenced in the first week of February and is scheduled to be completed by the end of March.
These communities have been experiencing frequent supply interruptions due to these communities not having formal reticulation.
In the interim, we have put up approximately eight static tanks on different sites for relief supply while work continues to upgrade the pipeline for supply improvement.
We also call for the community’s patience and co-operation while this process unfolds.