A Cyclone, Emerging Leader, Bothamley Park and Nature Call’s Wastewater insights
On Thursday 30 March we had our first branch meeting for 2023, held in Palmerston North. We had a full morning of presentations and then an afternoon of site tours of a new pedestrian precinct, pedestrian bridge then the current wastewater plant.
A big thank you goes out to Beca who hosted us at their offices in Palmerston North and put on an impressive spread for lunch.
The morning presentations included the Bothamley Park Truck Sewer Upgrade, Cyclone Gabrielle response and recovery by Tararua District Council, an IPWEA NZ update from Chief Executive Murray Pugh, and an in depth description of the extensive Palmerston North City Council water treatment upgrade project nature calls campaign.
Andrew Hay from Beca took us through the substantial upgrade to the Bothamley Park trunk sewer. He was clearly passionate about the project and was animated in his delivery of this project which will see a significant improvement in the frequency of breaches and repairs needed on this section of essential infrastructure. A more resilient structure will be constructed with future-proofed capacity.
Andrew showed us dramatic photos of the current sewer pipes crossing a stream with frequent damage causing wash out and breakages. The new pipe covers a large area and will be upgraded to cater for the expected 2,300 additional homes in the area over the coming 25 years. This is a reminder that the lifecycle of our assets is often well beyond the current generation living in the area. Construction has started on this project so it was great to see the improvements already made to the stream bed.
Tararua’s Experience of Cyclone Gabrielle
Raj shared with us the experiences of the Tararua District Council’s response and recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle. It was a timely walk through and reminder for all of us to be ready for such an event, both personally and professionally.
The lessons learnt from the state of emergency and their experience included:
- A multi agency approach to response and recovery is vital
- Coms are critical and key is to streamline the sharing of information
- Impact and needs assessment – need to done quickly and followed through
- The need for timely check-ins with everyone from the district and ensuring everyone has been contacted
- The difficulty in accurately predicting the severity of weather events and impacts on a very large district
- Well-being – EOC staff (Council and multi agency), community and those impacted. Fatigue, stress and anxiety
- Need to involve community in the recovery phase – take a network resilience approach
- Staffing of emergency centres to take into account BAU if the emergency will last longer than initially anticipated
Tararua District Council is still recovering from Cyclone Gabrielle, with impacts to roads, funding and asset management plans still being worked through. We wish them and the other councils effected the best of luck in working through this and thank TDC for sharing their learnings so that we can improve our own emergency management plans.
IPWEA NZ CEO covered the services and benefits offered by IPWEA NZ, and went over the changes which are proposed. Murray Pugh also highlighted the upcoming annual conference, Inspiring the next generation. It incorporates our awards presentations, celebrating 75 years of supporting asset management in Aotearoa, and of course an impressive program of technical and key speakers over three days.
Emerging member Taylor Da Silva, a Development Engineer at Palmerston North City Council shared her career path into Asset Management and some of the experience she has had in the field. Starting out she took a role at GHD as a 3 Waters Graduate, and more recently has been working at Palmerston North City Council. Taylor clearly has a passion for what she does and did a great job of sharing that with us.
Olivia Wix talked us through the Nature Calls project which is an excellent case study on story telling in asset management. When faced with the challenge of engaging the community in a traditionally ‘un-sexy’ asset management challenge of upgrading a waste water plant, the Palmerston North City Council took a wholistic approach to informing people about the important job of a waste water treatment plant.
Our site visits include the Cuba Street upgrade. This is now a lovely newly upgraded city scape, with increased people space, and beautiful landscaping.
