Our Work
Based on the 30+ years of water industry consulting experience of Owner / Director Steve Carne, Taonga Water Advisory is focused on providing industry leading services, in New Zealand and eastern Australia and the Pacific Islands. Below are some examples of the work that we have recently done or are currently engaged in.
Tauranga City Council
Having scoped out the program of works, we are currently managing and implementing all tasks associated with TCC’s wastewater network inflow and infiltration program. Rather than trying to correct an overflow problem due to excessive I/I, TCC’s I/I program is unique in that it is mainly of a preventive nature, aimed to keep already low I/I levels low, to enable further growth in and connections to the network. This has seen us help develop a bespoke I/I key performance indicator reporting dashboard that automatically calculates I/I KPIs (as per the Water NZ I/I Control Manual) from SCADA data feeds from over 165 pump stations in the network. Using the results from this analysis, we are also carrying out field source detection works in the few areas suspected of excessive I/I. We are also investigating the feasibility of alternate tactics for a private house lateral inspection and renewal program in order to reduce I/I arising from house lateral defects. Shortly, we will develop and scope a pilot rehabilitation program in an area identified by the dashboard analysis as having reduceable I/I volumes.
Palmerston North City Council
We are currently investigating in detail the operational performance of the city's wastewater network and developing an Inflow and Infiltration Management Plan for it. This work will assist PNCC in planning out its wastewater asset renewals program. As part of this project, we are carrying out a network rehabilitation pilot project in the village of Bunnythorpe to confirm likely I/I reduction levels that can be achieved from different levels of network rehabilitation.
South East Water
South East Water supports healthy and liveable communities by delivering water, sewerage and recycled water services to over 1.8 million people every day and every night in Melbourne's south-east. We have recently been supporting their internal stakeholder engagement post implementation to capture lessons learnt and key challenges/influences from their previous AMP development process. This work has involved formulation of a Roadmap and proposed AMP Table of Contents and a proposed detailed task by task program which will be a key input into the project initiation planning for their new AMP.
Whanganui District Council
At Whanganui we are completing a range of projects. These include a review and revamp of their trade waste operating regime. With 3 main and over 200 smaller trade waste dischargers connected to the system, WDC’s treatment plant is designed for a 280,000 ep even though there are only 45,000 people in Whanganui. It is therefore important to ensure that WDC’s trade waste regime is operating as well as it can and is in line with current industry best practice. We are also looking at in detail the inflow/infiltration levels within the wastewater network, in order to reduce the extent and frequency of network discharges during wet weather. Like the Tauranga work, we have also investigated the feasibility of a mandated house lateral renewal program in order to reduce to I/I arising from house lateral defects.
Rangitikei District Council
We are currently providing client-side Project Director, “smart-buyer” type support/review/challenge services to RDC on 3 key capital projects.
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Taihape WWTP and network improvements - In this project, we are investigating and removing sources of inflow and infiltration in the network so as to improve the operational performance and consent compliance of the wastewater treatment plant. A number of operational performance measures are being put in place for short term operational improvement and a longer term strategy is being developed to ensure the treatment plant discharge meets the requirements if the new Wastewater Discharge Standards. Our work is being supported by subconsultants GHD and JKSolutions.
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Ratana WWTP Discharge Alternatives. In this project we are investigating alternative discharge arrangements to the currently proposed solution of land disposal beside the Whangaehu River. Reticulating nearby Kotiata is part of our considerations.
Marton- Bulls Wastewater Centralisation Project
This project sees the connection of the wastewater systems at Marton and nearby Bulls and combining treatment processes into a single modern system. We are overseeing a consultant team providing technical advisory services that is currently considering treatment and disposal options with a view to applying for a new resource consent by mid 2026.
Stormharvester
UK-based Stormharvester have a unique machine learning and AI-fed software product that takes data from manhole level sensors and identifies early impending blockages so that they can be proactively cleared before they cause overflows. Their software also readily assesses I/I performance in the network based on the same source data. With an impressive take up of their product throughout English water companies , we have been assisting Stormharvester in developing their market opportunities across New Zealand and Australia.
GHD
We have provided bid support, strategy and advisory services for global multidisciplinary consultancy GHD on a number of their water, wastewater and stormwater projects and specifc opportunity pursuits across New Zealand and the Pacific.
DHI Water and Environment
We are currently completing some advisory and review work to assist DHI in tailoring their Future City Flows software to incorporate I/I KPIs that are contained in the New Zealand and Australian I/I Manuals that Steve authored.
Detection Services Limited
We recently carried out bid support, review and strategy advisory services to Detection Services, Australasia's leading water-wastewater condition assessment company for a major project opportunity pursuit they undertook with a leading NZ-based water agency. Subsequent to this we are now carrying out numerical Inflow/Infiltration KPI analyses of flows monitored by Detection Services for wastewater catchment studies for clients in Australia. Procedures followed are as per the WSAA I/I Good Practice Guideline authored by Steve in 2014. These have thus far been completed for water agency clients in Tasmania (Taswater) and south-east Queensland.
Tararua District Council
We are currently providing review/challenge and technical support services to TDC as it aims to reduce inflow/infiltration in its network at Eketahuna as a precursor to a wider endeavour across all its wastewater networks.
WaterForce
We have recently completed some advisory consultancy services for WaterForce as it considers potential market expansion opportunities across its NZ business.