Letter to the Health Committee about the Water Services Bill

^{Māngere Wastewater Treatment Plant, PCE}

The Commissioner has written a letter to the Health Committee expressing concern over some of the wording in the Water Services Bill regarding environmental monitoring of wastewater and stormwater.

In particular, he is concerned about the proposal to invest Taumata Arowai with the power to “develop, publish, and maintain environmental performance measures for wastewater and stormwater networks".

This wording risks setting up two national-level environmental regulators – Taumata Arowai and the Environmental Protection Authority – each responsible for environmental monitoring, compliance and enforcement of different parts of the environment. Such a division of regulatory authority would create a fragmented, and potentially contradictory, approach to environmental management.

The Commissioner supports Taumata Arowai to monitor, collect data and report on the collective and individual operational performance of wastewater and stormwater networks to provide a national lens on how well those systems are working.

However, while the quality of water coming out of the network should be overseen by Taumata Arowai as it is an operational issue, the quality of water received by the environment (i.e. the environmental measure) should be set by the relevant regional council.

The Commissioner asks that the select committee consider changing the wording in the bill to make it clear exactly what environmental performance measures Taumata Arowai will be setting.