Implementing a Sustainable Water Infrastructure in Dunedin
Presented at the 13th Annual Local Government Asset Management Conference - April 2010.
Background
In 2007 Dunedin City Council undertook a review
of the Water and Waste Services Business Unit.
The Council was approaching the late stages of implementation of its
water and wastewater upgrade strategy, and recognised that it had a shortfall
in the strategic planning capabilities of the business unit.
As part of an integrated improvement strategy,
two significant projects were initiated. The first was a restructure of the
department, to place more focus and emphasis on strategic planning and network
management. The second was the
commencement of the 3 Waters Strategy project.
The purpose of this project was to develop network models across all three
waters, that would guide medium and long term capital programming. Across the course of the past 2 years, the
newly formed asset strategy team have worked closely with consultants to assess
the strategic challenges that will face Dunedin City’s
water infrastructure over a 50 year time horizon.
Whilst much of the work was focussed at a
technical level, during the course of the project it became apparent that the
Council needed to develop a set of guiding principles and priorities for use in
operational, tactical and strategic decision making in order to ensure the
integrated and sustainable management of water and waste infrastructure. It was
this realisation that initiated the development of the 3 Waters Strategic
Direction Statement.
The statement makes a balanced assessment of
the management priorities for the City’s 3 Waters infrastructure, recognising
the economic, social, cultural, environmental and technical challenges that lie
ahead. In developing the statement we have adopted a 50 year planning horizon, reflecting
the long life of infrastructure assets and the consequent need to plan beyond
the regulatory timeframe of the LTCCP.
Information Gathering
Analysis of Strategic Drivers
The first stage in developing the strategy was
to review the strategic drivers using a PEST
analysis. The most significant drivers identified
were climate change and sea level rise; demographic changes; peak oil; ageing
infrastructure; legislative changes and potential changes to industry structure
and governance. The team reviewed the
best available assumptions in each of these areas including, where appropriate,
high, medium and low scenarios. In each
case, the planning assumptions that the Council intend to use have been clearly
identified in the Strategic Direction Statement.
In many cases, it has been necessary to work
across council, or with other organisations (e.g. Regional Council; University
of Otago; NIWA; statistics NZ) to access the best available information
relating to the local situation. In some
cases, the need to develop planning scenarios for the 3 Waters Strategy has
triggered spin off projects. For example, the Council has worked with
consultants to develop a complete set of growth projections spanning a 50 year
planning horizon for use across all Council activities. They have also recently commissioned a
detailed ‘expert’ review of available information on climate change
vulnerability for the City from Professor Blair Fitzharris, Emeritus Professor
and a convening lead author on the IPCC.
Review of Community
Priorities
It was also important for us to understand what
the community’s concerns and priorities were in relation to the 3 Waters. As
well as reviewing information sources such as the annual plan submissions and
previous city forum discussions, we held a number of focus groups sessions with
representatives across the four well-beings (economic, social, cultural and
environmental). They focussed particularly
on the perceptions and concerns of strategic issues and concerns, rather than potential
solutions. There was also ongoing
liaison with the local iwi throughout the process.
The issues identified were then formed into a
questionnaire completed by 600 randomly chosen households from across the city.
A pair-wise analysis was used to prioritise the issues based on results from
the surveys.
Technical Constraints
The outputs from the network modelling, and
other related technical projects, were used to identify where there were
current issues with service performance and where problems are likely to
develop given the potential future scenarios.
Strategy Development
Timeline
The purpose of developing a strategy is to
ensure effective and sustainable planning for the future. However, there was a
risk that creating a clear picture of the potential future may have caused an
over- reaction and a tendency to ‘front load’ the strategy. We therefore attempted to create a timeline
using a ‘just in time’ approach to planning responses.
For each of the strategic drivers, we
identified any milestone dates or trigger levels for action to be required and
plotted these on a timeline. We worked
back from the milestone dates to identify the necessary timing of the potential
response.
Concurrently, we worked up some general themes
and approaches that were required to be able to respond across the range of
issues and challenges. This was an iterative
approach, and we were mindful to ensure that we looked at the situation as a
whole, rather than putting in place single issue solutions that may have unintended
consequences. The strategy is
summarised in the table below and the key strategic priorities are detailed in
Appendix 1.
Next Steps
The 3 Waters Strategic Direction Statement was
recently adopted by Council. Over the
coming year, we will be developing detailed implementation programmes and
budgets for consideration in future annual planning processes, as well as
embedding the principles into day to day operation.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
- We will meet the water needs of the
city for the next 50 years from existing water sources
-
The Council will lead the way by reducing system
losses to economic levels
-
The Council will help, educate and incentivise
consumers to waste less water.
- We will be able to adapt to a
variety of future scenarios for climate change and fluctuations in population
-
We will increase the flexibility and resilience of our
infrastructure to reduce the risk of prolonged service interruptions.
-
We will ensure that where possible, new infrastructure
is scalable to allow for increases or decreases in demand.
- We will reduce our reliance on
non-renewable energy sources and oil based products
-
We will prioritise the use of energy efficient
technology
-
We will generate renewable energy from our network,
catchments and other resources
-
We will reduce the reliance of our supply chain on oil
based products.
- We will improve the quality of our
discharges to minimise the impact on the environment.
-
We will resolve all known cross connections between
the foul and stormwater networks by 2015 and have an ongoing programme to
disconnect the systems as new issues are identified.
-
We will reduce the contaminant load in our stormwater.
We will use source control where practical, or otherwise consider effective
stormwater treatment.
-
We will reduce the number of foul sewer overflows
arising as a result of capacity.
-
We will assess the long term feasibility of wastewater
treatment plant locations prior to individual consent renewal and consider
alternatives such as land-based disposal.
- We will ensure that, as a minimum, key service levels are maintained
into the future.
-
We will invest adequately in renewals to
maintain the performance of our infrastructure.
-
We will plan our renewals effectively to
avoid sharp increases in costs.
-
We will continue with our planned programme
of water upgrades and, once completed, maintain our drinking water quality at
those levels.
-
There will be no increase in the number of
residential or commercial properties at risk of sewer flooding, despite increasing
pressure on the network.
-
We will prioritise our investment based on
the community’s willingness to pay for improvements and what they are willing
to sacrifice as a result.
- We will limit cost increases to current
affordability where practical.
-
We will set water rates and charges that
provide value for money and that ensure we can finance our services.
-
As far as possible, we will meet the
investment challenges of the future by driving efficiency in our core service.
-
We will build long term visibility of
investment needs to allow meaningful debate with the community on
affordability.
- We will adopt an integrated approach to
management of the three waters and embrace the concept of kaitiakitaka.
-
We will consider our activities in the context
of the wider water cycle and recognise the inter-relationships between drinking
water, wastewater and stormwater.
-
We will work more closely with other water
users to understand potential conflicts and opportunities to make more
efficient use of water resources.
-
We will look for opportunities to implement
strategic ‘landscape-scale’ sustainable drainage schemes as well as encouraging
smaller schemes that service particular homes or developments.
-
We will work with other stakeholders to
simplify management of the three waters activities whilst developing and
maintaining an integrated approach.
-
We will work more effectively across Council
departments to align spatial and water planning processes, so that decisions on
the type, design and location of new housing can be made with a good
understanding of the requirements for new infrastructure.
