Published 14/03/2024
Overall risk of tighter water restrictions significantly reduced, thanks to the efforts of Wellingtonians.
Wellingtonians' continued efforts to conserve water and cooler weather ahead mean an escalation to Level 3 water restrictions has significantly reduced.
“Thanks Wellington – thanks to you we’ve made it through a tricky summer and avoided tighter water restrictions together,” says Charles Barker, Director of Regulatory Services.
“Today we have run the numbers again and what this shows is that the hard mahi of the community has really paid off with the likelihood of moving to Level 3 dropping down to 16 per cent.
“Going into summer, there was a genuine risk of tighter water restrictions, and we called on the public to play their part.
“We’ve managed to avoid Level 3 restrictions, and this has reinforced what we already knew – that Wellingtonians want to do the right thing and can work together to make sure there's enough water for everyone.”
The current Level 2 restrictions remain in place, as low river levels mean the region still needs to conserve the storage lakes that supplement supply.
The chance of moving to Level 4 Water Restrictions has also reduced to a very remote possibility at 5 percent. This development follows the end of a high-risk period and a forecast outlook for cooler weather in April, with demand remaining at sustainable levels.
“We anticipate being able to safely reduce from Level 2 to Level 1 once more steady rain fills up the catchments over the next few weeks,” says Charles.
“This means that we still do have to continue to keep an eye on our water use and avoid any major spikes in demand over the next few weeks.”
Wellington Water acknowledges there has been some frustration amongst the community about the requests to conserve water this past summer while the region is dealing with increasing level of leaks and water loss.
“We want to assure Wellingtonians that we are committed to working with our council owners to deliver a more resilient water network and we are out there every day finding and fixing leaks.”
As we leave summer, we are already turning our focus to working with our councils to see what mitigations can be put in place to reduce the risk of tight water restrictions next summer.
Our updated numbers for the likelihood of going up restriction levels can be found on our Updated Risk Dashboard.
Our weekly progress on leaks can be found on our Weekly Leaks Dashboard.
Editor notes
Wellington Water is owned and fully funded by Wellington City Council, Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council, and Upper Hutt City Council, Greater Wellington Regional Council and South Wairarapa District Council. All six councils are equal shareholders.
Our councils own the water infrastructure in the region, and they task us to manage the infrastructure and deliver water services to our communities.
Wellington Water is governed by a Board of Directors. The Board and our organisation receive overall leadership and direction from the Wellington Water Committee, which are also responsible for appointing members to the Board.
The Wellington Water Committee is made up of representatives from our council owners and mana whenua.