Watercare Completes New $115m Watermain 20% Under Budget

A final piece of Watercare’s $115 million new watermain carrying water to west and central Auckland was slotted into place this morning after a six-year construction effort spanning seven suburbs.

The 914mm-diameter Huia 1 watermain begins at the Titirangi reservoirs and carries water all the way to Gillies Ave in Epsom, supplying communities along its 15.5-kilometre route.

Watercare head of water Sharon Danks was there to see the final four-metre section of pipe lowered into the ground in Heaphy St, Blockhouse Bay.

“It’s really exciting to have our new Huia 1 watermain about to go into service.

“It replaces an old pipeline built in the 1940s that was nearing the end of its life, and also adds capacity to our water network to support new housing.

“To start with it will carry on average 30 million litres of water a day – water that originated in the western dams and we’ve treated at our Huia Water Treatment Plant. But we’ve futureproofed the Huia 1 pipeline to accommodate population growth.”

Watercare capital delivery general manager Suzanne Lucas says the project had an approved budget of $143.5m but will be delivered for considerably less.

“We’re thrilled to be delivering this project safely and significantly under budget. It’s tracking at $115m – almost a $30m saving on the budgeted cost.

“We found efficiencies by involving our contractor in the planning and design of the later stages of the project, and by working closely with Auckland Transport to optimise our traffic management arrangements.”

Crews installed the pipe in stages, and not in a linear fashion. Most of the watermain is within the roading network.

“We’ve brought parts of the pipe into service along the way, so communities have already been seeing the benefit of this new watermain, though they may not have known it!

“We recognise this project was disruptive to communities and commuters along the route, and we’d really like to thank everyone for their patience while we built this critical watermain.

“It goes a long way to improving the resilience of our water network in these areas and will supply drinking water to western and central communities for generations to come.”

Renewing and upgrading ageing infrastructure forms a major part of Watercare’s 10-year Business Plan, which the company released last month.

About half of the $13.8 billion investment planned for the next decade will be spent on projects that replace or upgrade existing infrastructure, improving the reliability of Auckland’s water and wastewater services.

“Reliability and growth are at the heart of our Business Plan – and this project delivers on both accounts,” Lucas says.

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