A $ 34 million deposit alleviates Auckland’s drought, and the mayor wants 50 million more liters of Waikato

Auckland residents have an additional 25 million liters of water to draw in a day thanks to a new $ 34 million reservoir at Pukekohe, and Mayor Phil Goff is trying to draw another 50 million liters from the Waikato River.

The mayor of Auckland on Friday visited the newly completed Pukekohe East Reservoir, which is already in operation, and is 12 meters high to store the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools.

The reservoir stores water from the Watercare water treatment plant in Waikato before it is distributed through the wider Auckland network.

“This will be a major boost as we continue to deal with the impacts of the driest six months from November to April Auckland has ever experienced and lake levels are still significantly below their average level,” Goff said.

It means Auckland now has an additional 25 million liters on top of the 100 million liters Auckland can take from the Waikato River, after the Waikato Regional Council gave its consent this month.

Goff is now in talks to get more water from the Waikato River, not with the Waikato Regional Council this time, but with an agricultural user who has consent to 50 million liters of the river but is not using it.

“The 50 million liters is still under negotiation with the consent holder,” Goff said.

“We will achieve that and that will bring us to the full capacity of our current Waikato / Auckland pipeline.”

“So there is still a long way below normal. What I don’t want to do is remove the restrictions prematurely only to find that we have to enforce them even harder later on.

“If we have the rain we need, we could get out of the restrictions sooner. But it would be incredibly unwise for us to remove the restrictions because of the possibility of rain.”

Goff and council staff will meet this week to discuss whether the water restrictions will be maintained.

“We are beginning to look at our strategy. What are we going to do in the long term? Do we take more from the Waikato? Do we recycle our wastewater?” Goff said.

The mayor also said that after stopping charging for resource consent for Auckland residents to install a water tank at home in July, they are now considering giving up the resource consent process entirely.