Waipā’s water supply capacity will be an ongoing legacy of February’s storms.
The district council faces what could be a three year juggling act in the wake of the loss of a major reservoir and says it’s imperative the community keep an eye on their water usage.
Waipā District Council water services manager Karl Pavlovich with Mangauika Stream and its path of destruction in the background. Photo: Jesse Wood
The Te Tahi rural water reservoir, which suppled more than half the water to Pirongia, Te Awamutu and Kihikihi, was destroyed in the February storms.
Te Awamutu News 23 April 2026
Temporary measures are in place – water for Te Awamutu, Pirongia and Kihikihi is now mainly coming from Parallel Rd via Taylors Hill reservoir. But the amount available doesn’t match the amount used at peak times
The Mangauika Stream fed the Te Tahi plant at the base of Mt Pirongia, in the Ōtorohanga district. The February deluge in the stream included debris and boulders – one the size of a small vehicle – which took out a weir, a ford, several bridges and damaged the reservoir banks.
“It’s scary how little of our infrastructure we’ve been able to find,” Waipā District Council water services manager Karl Pavlovich said.
It is the first time a water treatment plant in the Waipā district has been taken offline due to a weather event.
“The weir was a structure in the stream, which the water would back up behind and flow over. We would take water from behind that structure,” Pavlovich said. “The now bent out of shape pipe work would run under the bed and onward to the settlement pond. That’s all been destroyed. We also lost between five and 10 metres of earth, weakening the reservoir bank. About 93 megalitres was held back by less than five metres of dirt.”
The decision was made to drain the reservoir to decrease the risk of it bursting.
The now bent, and formerly underground, pipe work at Mangauika Stream that fed from the demolished weir to the settlement pond. Photo: Jesse Wood
Te Awamutu, Kihikihi and Pirongia uses nine to 15 megalitres of water a day.
The Pirongia water supply was strengthened in late February with a new backup connection at the Frontier Rd reservoir, but overall system capacity is reduced and will struggle to meet peak summer demand.
“Pirongia didn’t lose water at all during the event. The flow metre went up, the staff knew they had a breakage and isolated the valves. They didn’t lose water pressure and water could continue,” Pavlovich said. “Then they got onto the job of reconfiguring the network, bringing that water out of Frontier Rd into Pirongia. At that point in time, the only water going into Frontier Rd was through the bore. It was a phenomenal job from the staff.”
The council is working to understand the extent of insurance coverage and the implications for repair, recovery and reinstatement of the damaged water treatment infrastructure.
It is looking at current demand, future growth and risk scenarios, as well as legislative requirements and considering what it could mean for the long-term plan.
This bore at Frontier Rd reservoir was servicing Pirongia before the new pipe was installed, allowing the reservoir to be topped up from Taylors Hill. Photo: Jesse Wood
The issue comes as the council prepares to hand over responsibility for water to Waikato Waters Limited – a joint council-controlled organisation formed by Waipā, Matamata-Piako, Hauraki, Ōtorohanga, Waitomo, South Waikato and Taupō District Councils.
Pavlovich said the council will continue to “keep the ball rolling” until Waikato Waters Limited take over on July 1.
“Until this point in time, Te Tahi has been a fantastic water supply for decades. It was the intensity and the locality of that rain event. About 260 millimetres in six hours – a one in 250-year event.
“Engineers are looking at options but it’s Waikato Waters that will make the decisions. It’s not just an infrastructure fix; it’s a community fix too.”
Waikato Waters will manage more than $1.6 billion in water assets, improve infrastructure and ensure safe services while keeping decision-making close to home.
The settlement pond at Te Tahi rural water reservoir. Photo: Jesse Wood
“By the time we hand over on July 1, we would have purchased a membrane unit for Parallel Rd,” Pavlovich said. “That was planned for an upgrade in 2027-28. We’ve brought that forward and that will give us another three megalitres, hopefully by September.”
Work on a new pipeline on Racecourse Rd in Te Awamutu will also begin in the meantime.
“Because the water is flowing in a different direction now – it was coming from Te Tahi into Pirongia and now it’s coming from Taylors Hill through to Pirongia – areas of Te Awamutu have different pressure now, or pressure issues they already had are being exacerbated, because of the way the hydraulics work.
“We hope to resolve some of those pressure issues and get a better supply of water through town into Frontier Rd reservoir and out to Pirongia.
“The Te Tahi water treatment plant produced about half the peak water the Te Awamutu community used. That’s a massive reduction in the amount of water available,” Pavlovich said. “The water alert level two messaging hasn’t disappeared. We’ll simply ask people to continuously be conservative and think about the value of the water before they use it.
“We expect that when Waikato Waters move into the first summer here, you’ll see escalations to those higher water restrictions earlier on – level three and potentially level four.”
The reservoir was holding about 93 megalitres of water and had to be drained. Photo: Jesse Wood
