{"id":550470,"date":"2026-07-30T01:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/550470\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T01:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T01:32:13","slug":"watercares-15-2b-plan-to-bring-more-water-from-waikato-create-thousands-of-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/550470\/","title":{"rendered":"Watercare\u2019s $15.2b plan to bring more water from Waikato, create thousands of jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new alliance deal has been signed for the Waikato River project that will see a $1.7b spend, including a new raw water intake, a 50km pipeline, a new 50-megalitre reservoir at Pukekohe West and a new water treatment plant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new treatment plant that we\u2019re building at Waikato is within the current agreements and current consenting regime,\u201d Crowle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Waikato water treatment plant is essential to provide that resilience and water security for Auckland from the mid-2030s going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $15b programme includes $4b of new spending.<\/p>\n

The $1.6b Central Interceptor opened last week and now that project has been completed, two new interceptors are launching in Avondale and at the Motions wastewater catchment, at a cost of $1.6b.<\/p>\n

The aim is to reduce wet-weather overflows.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s around growth and population demand but also ensuring that we\u2019re picking up the overflow points,\u201d Crowle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole objective of that particular programme is to eliminate the overflows into the Waitemat\u0101 Harbour. We\u2019re picking up those overflow points too, which will direct that back into the Central Interceptor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watercare chief executive Jamie Sinclair said the programme represented a significant milestone for Auckland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the largest infrastructure investment programme Watercare has ever undertaken and represents a step change in how we plan and deliver infrastructure,\u201d Sinclair said.<\/p>\n

\"WatercareWatercare chief executive Jamie Sinclair (right) at the opening of Auckland’s $1.6 billion Central Interceptor. Photo \/ Corey Fleming<\/p>\n

\u201cAuckland is dealing with decades of underinvestment while continuing to grow. We are renewing ageing assets, strengthening the resilience of our network and building the new infrastructure needed to support future growth \u2013 all at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watercare has opposed some proposed fast-track residential projects<\/a> because they represent out-of-sequence growth and are in areas the entity can\u2019t service for decades.<\/p>\n

Crowle said the plan showed Aucklanders where growth should \u2013 and shouldn\u2019t \u2013 go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it sends a key message to everybody in Auckland as to where we\u2019re going to place that investment and what that will look like over at least the next 10 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

About 50% of the spend will go on renewals.<\/p>\n

\"AA sinkhole reopened on a flood-damaged Auckland street this week, raising infrastructure fears.<\/p>\n

A sinkhole reopened in the leafy central Auckland suburb<\/a> of St Marys Bay this week, raising concerns yet again about our ageing infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s trying to balance renewals of ageing infrastructure with the growth component and it works out to roughly 50\/50 over the whole programme of work,\u201d Crowle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn earlier years, it\u2019s actually slightly more in the renewal space, but as we ramp up into these large programmes of work and projects, it more levels out to around that 50\/50 split.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rosedale Wastewater treatment plan will also be upgraded, with $600 million spent on new technology to increase resilience and environmental performance.<\/p>\n

The infrastructure industry has long called for a secure pipeline of work, to help plan for a workforce and investment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Central Interceptor created well over 4000 jobs,\u201d Crowle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis programme is likely to be into the tens of thousands [of jobs] due to the scale of the projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Waikato water programme is a bigger spend than the interceptor and we\u2019re looking at coming to market later this year. That\u2019ll be about a five-year programme of work, so significant jobs in that one alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis 10-year programme is just the start. We\u2019re now starting work on our 20- and 30-year programme, so this will be an enduring piece of work,\u201d Crowle said.<\/p>\n

Katie Bradford is a Senior Correspondent at the Herald. She has been a broadcast journalist for over 20 years and was based in the press gallery for 10 years. She specialises in politics, business and Auckland issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new alliance deal has been signed for the Waikato River project that will see a $1.7b spend,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[270242,19831,51,5432,3021,138,8615,5232,3468,21659,71,232,65989,1132,130,111,139,69,1118,5202,2170,6739,20705,2742,61,23505,1524,270243,376,110498,270241,1533],"class_list":["post-550470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-152b","tag-19831","tag-auckland","tag-between","tag-bring","tag-business","tag-come","tag-create","tag-deal","tag-drinking","tag-from","tag-jobs","tag-litres","tag-million","tag-more","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-part","tag-plan","tag-river","tag-struck","tag-thousands","tag-to","tag-treated","tag-waikato","tag-waikatotainui","tag-water","tag-watercare","tag-watercares","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}