Worries over water rise as levels fall | Northland News | Local News in Northland

Northland is in danger of being declared a drought zone after extremely low rainfall,  water restrictions already  operating in some parts of the region.

Residents in Whangarei and the Far North -   where water use by holidaymakers and firefighters battling a spate of scrub fires caused a spike - have been advised to start conserving water now to avoid potentially critical shortages by March.

Water level at the reservoir that supplies Paihia, Opua and Haruru Falls plummeted  to 16 per cent before New Year's Eve,  requiring the Far North District Council to enforce a ban on the use of hoses and sprinklers.

Council spokeswoman Alison Lees  said the ban would remain in force until further notice or for another week at least.

She said reasons for the critically low water levels were a huge influx of visitors to the Bay of Islands, people watering gardens and bulk water carriers filling up from the reservoir.

"We try not to impose bans but we have to, and in other places we're watching supplies closely," Ms Lees said.

People should start conserving or cutting down on water use to relieve pressure and to save them money, she said.

Whangarei received only a third of the usual rainfall in the three months leading up to January 1.

 That was less rainfall than in the three months  before the 1987 drought when capacity at Whau Valley Dam dropped to 12 per cent.

More worrying, Whangarei District Council water services manager Andrew Venmore says, is that  water levels in the rivers  feeding the city's supply have already fallen considerably.

He said Whau Valley Dam was expected to be about 92 per cent full at the beginning of December in a usual year, but last month the level was 79 per cent and was now at 77 per cent.

"A week's rain at any time could start to turn things around, but the long-term forecast is for more dry weather and people need to start conserving water now," Mr Venmore said.

"This may slow the rate of fall at the dam in late January and prevent a major situation from developing in February and March."

He said consumers in Mangapai  were being urged to use less water as the Tauraroa Stream  was very low, forcing the WDC to reduce its take.

 The council was also tightening up in all the areas it could to minimise lost water from the system such as identifying leaks and fixing them quickly, monitoring flows and keeping an eye out for illegal use of fire hydrants.

"Further down the track we may need to restrict the use of hoses and car washing," he said.

According to the Northland Regional Council, most of the region hadn't received  decent rainfall since mid-October, although thunderstorms affected southern areas in early December.

Water resources/hydrology programme manager Dale Hansen  said rivers around Whangarei were already at their Mean Annual Low Flow rates (MALF), which was very early in the year to be so.

"Historically, these flow rates are not expected until late January, so flows could be critically low by late January to mid-February if present weather patterns continue."

Farmers of New Zealand operations director Bill Guest  described the weather as  "good old-fashioned drought" that we used to get about 10 years ago.

He said it would be an early end to the milking season for farmers if the present weather conditions continued for three to four weeks.