Proposed changes to New Zealand’s Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules for supplies that serve 500 or fewer people

Overview

At Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai, we’re committed to ensuring that safe water obligations for small drinking water suppliers are cost-effective and appropriate to the supply size and level of risk. 

We’re undertaking a review of the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules (the Rules) in two parts.   

First, we’re seeking your feedback on proposed changes to Rules for supplies that serve 500 or fewer people.  

Second, we plan to consult on proposed changes to Rules for supplies that serve 500 or more people by late 2025.  

This Rules review is one of several initiatives we will seek sector input into in the near future, aimed at making compliance more straightforward for drinking water suppliers or network operators.   

Why are we proposing these Rule changes now? 
We’re reviewing the Rules in two parts to make Rules for small and medium-sized suppliers clearer, sooner.  

We propose that updated Rules for supplies that serve 500 or fewer people apply from 1 January 2025 to align with the annual drinking water regulation reporting cycle. You’ll be invited to provide feedback on this effective date in this consultation. 

More specifically, these proposed changes for small and medium-sized suppliers aim to: 

• make the Rules more straightforward and streamlined  
• reduce overall effort required to demonstrate compliance with Rule requirements. 

Suppliers must comply with all Rules relevant to their supply. However, these proposed changes more clearly indicate which Rules suppliers need to, and do not need to, report on to Taumata Arowai.  

What can I expect from the consultation?
We’ve grouped Rule changes for:  

• supplies that serve 25 or fewer people (Very Small Communities) 
• supplies that serve 26 – 100 people (Small Supplies) 
• supplies that serve 101 – 500 people (Medium Supplies) 
• communities with changing populations (Varying Populations). 

To help save time, you can have your say on proposed changes to Rules for one or more of these supply types, in line with your preference and interests.  

Everyone also has the option to provide feedback on reporting Rules and the proposed effective date for Rules to apply.  

If you start responding to this consultation and want to return to it later, select the 'Save and come back later' option at the bottom of the page to save your progress.   

Have your say by Friday, 18 October 
This consultation closes at 5pm on Friday, 18 October 2024.  

We ask that you provide all feedback via the online survey. Free text boxes are provided for any individual comments you want to provide.  

Responding to your feedback to make collating feedback across organisations easier 
We’ve had feedback that it would be helpful for suppliers to print or download a document with all of the consultation questions. This would make it easier to review the consultation content in its entirety, and collate feedback from across their organisation, before submitting it through the online consultation.  
 
Accordingly, we have published this document for those who would find it useful.  

However, we request that you use the online consultation platform to provide us with your feedback. This makes it quicker and easier for us to analyse all feedback and provide you with consultation results sooner.

Questions?  
If you have questions about this consultation, please email us at: korero@taumataarowai.govt.nz.