28 May 2019
A $12.6 million contract for a brand new pipeline has been awarded as major work continues on upgrading Te Awamutu's water supply.
Waipa District Council has contracted Waipa Civil to build a new pipeline to connect the Taylor's Hill reservoir in Te Awamutu with a new water treatment plant to be built at Parallel Road. Contractors will also install a new water main from Taylor's Hill, connecting to the Bond Road industrial park and new residential areas in the town.
The latest contract is just one part of the wider strategy to upgrade the town's water infrastructure to cope with growth and address issues with the existing supply. Te Awamutu's water supply comes from the Mangauika Stream on Mt Pirongia and a bore in Frontier Road. Under the terms of its resource consent, the Council is limited as to how much water it can take from the stream on behalf of the community. In some years, that has led to town water supplies running low over summer.
In 2017, after failing to find a second sustainable underground bore, elected members opted to upgrade the Parallel Road water treatment plant to enable more water to be taken from the Waikato River. The contract for the upgraded water treatment plant will be awarded later this year with the plant operational by late 2020.
Meanwhile, work is already underway on an upgrade to the Pukerimu raw water intake pump station and a new untreated water main.
Project delivery manager Lorraine Kendrick said multiple million-dollar water infrastructure contracts were being managed consecutively as Council pushed ahead with its strategy to upgrade infrastructure across the district. In Te Awamutu, Council brought forward some of the work so taste and odour issues caused by algae blooms over summer could be more quickly addressed, she said.
Over the next 9-10 years, close to $108 million will be spent on upgrading water and waste water infrastructure across the Waipā district in order to replace old infrastructure, deal with supply and demand issues and cater for projected population growth.
Physical work on the latest pipeline contract for Te Awamutu will begin in August and is likely to take around 12 months to complete.