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Council provides all urban and rural-residential properties in Tauranga with constant, sustainable and high quality water.  Our last Ministry of Health grading confirms that we have some of the best drinking water in the country.

The process starts with collecting water from the natural environment.  We are permitted to do this from two sources – the Tautau and Waiorohi streams.  The water at the source is very clean but by the time it passes through several hectares of cattle country and the occasional land slip it needs some work before it is suitable for drinking and bathing in.

The water is treated at both the Oropi and Joyce Road water processing plants.  Microfiltration technology is used which basically means the water passes through very tiny holes and through millions of tiny straws that remove nasties like Giardia and Cryptosporidium and dirt.  Once filtered, the water is chlorinated, leaving a very small amount of chlorine in the water to kill off any contaminants. (It only takes a very small amount of chlorine: one part per million.)  The water is then tested before being pumped across the city to your home.

We have over 1000km of pipes to carry the water, 31 reservoirs and tanks to hold our supply and 46,000 water meters to measure how much we use.

Tauranga City uses an average of 36 million litres of water per day.  In summer this can rise to 54 million litres per day.

Council is planning to build a third micro-filtration water processing plant along the Waiari Stream in Te Puke to help us keep up with the demands of a growing city.

Common water issues

Water Metering - The Tauranga Journey - Paper written by Peter Bahrs and John Sternberg