Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
It's looking increasingly unlikely Wellingtonians will avoid facing tighter restrictions on their water use, officials say.
Most of the Wellington region is set to move to level two restrictions next week, with a ban on all sprinklers and irrigation systems for residential homes in Wellington, Porirua, Hutt, and Upper Hutt.
Wellington Water said the decision had been made due to very high demand putting pressure on the drinking water supply, which has been drained by thousands of leaks across the region's ageing water infrastructure.
"At the moment, fundamentally, the water restrictions are driven by the high level of water loss that the networks have," Wellington Water acting chief Charles Barker told RNZ on Friday.
"That's obviously exacerbated as we come through into summer and we head towards Waitangi and Wellington anniversary, which is our period of our peak demand."
There were more than 3000 leaks across the wider Wellington region, he said, thanks to pipes more than a century old not being replaced.
"If we can fix those leaks, we get the water loss down - and there is enough water in the region, if we had reasonable water loss that we wouldn't need severe water restrictions… With the funding that we've got available from our owner councils, we're doing everything we can to spend that money as wisely as possible to get the water loss down."
With the current funding engineers were "holding our own", but reform was needed, Barker said - not to mention $1 billion a year for a decade.
"At the moment there's a 76 percent chance that we would have to go to level three this summer… we're just asking Wellingtonians to do what they've been doing at level one and level two - which is comply with the restrictions, and that'll give us our best chance."
Wellington mayor Tory Whanau said 41 percent of water in the city was lost to leaks.
"That is why, just before Christmas, council approved an additional $2 million in extra funding for Wellington Water to fix as many leaks as possible over the coming months," she said.
"Because of decades of underinvestment, it will take years to see the difference of our overall investment in our pipes."
Wellington city mayor Tory Whanau Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Fixing pipes was a "top priority" for Wellington City Council, and it would continue working with Wellington Water and the region's other councils to ensure investment continued, Whanau said.
She said it was frustrating the region had to deal with water restrictions, "but we need to work together to help manage this issue".
"I encourage everyone to follow advice and not use their sprinklers and irrigation systems.
"People can also do their bit by doing simple things such as taking shorter showers and not running the tap while brushing their teeth."
The new government is replacing the previous government's planned water reforms with its own changes, the exact structure of which was yet to be revealed,
Work being done on a broken pipe in Wellington CBD which led to a water outage for at least 100 properties in the area. Photo: RNZ / Krystal Gibbens
It did not appear the region could turn to the weather for help either, at least not before the Waitangi Day (6 February) and Wellington anniversary (22 January) peak Barker mentioned.
"As we go in towards Sunday, we'll find some wet weather for us. It's a fairly short-lived affair," MetService meteorologist John Law told RNZ.
"I think that'll clear off very quickly as we head in towards Monday and Tuesday, pushing further northwards in towards that second half of January.
"We are looking at more in the way of an unsettled story across the North Island, but there's a lot of the activity more likely to come from the north and the west - so perhaps not impacting Wellington as much as other parts of the North Island.
"But it is, I think, gonna be a bit more unsettled for that second half of the month - but it is, of course, still dry, and I think we've had a very dry start to January, so it's always worth keeping that in mind as we go through the rest of the month."
As for the rest of the country, Law said the South Island should get some rain heading into the weekend, while the scorching temperatures experienced nationwide should cool off a bit over the following days.
"So while on Sunday, we're still looking at temperatures reaching highs of around about 29C for the likes of say, Christchurch, we're looking at highs of only around about say 20C or so as we go through towards Monday - so a bit of a drop through there, and I think our night-time temperatures much cooler as well."
