Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai
Each of us needs enough safe water to drink, prepare food and keep ourselves and our homes clean – it’s essential to our health and wellbeing.
Local councils play a critical role providing safe drinking water to people across New Zealand. Over 80% of us (that’s over 4.3 million people) drink water supplied by our local council each day.
Local councils also play an essential role managing the wastewater and stormwater infrastructure and services for the people that live in their city or district.
Regional councils also have an important role to play in regulating wastewater (by issuing wastewater consents, monitoring and enforcing related consent conditions) and setting rules related to freshwater quality. It’s easier to treat source water (to make it safe to drink) if it has fewer contaminants in it. So, it’s important to prevent lakes, rivers, streams, and groundwater from becoming contaminated.
Who we are
At the Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai, we’re committed to a future where everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand has safe and reliable drinking water every day
It’s a big goal and it’ll take everyone across the water sector working together over decades to get there.
To support this vision, we:
• regulate drinking water suppliers so they meet their responsibilities for monitoring and treating water
• provide guidance and how-to information to help drinking water suppliers understand and meet their responsibilities
We also play a role improving the way wastewater and stormwater networks affect the environment. We do this by developing nationally consistent environmental performance standards and reporting on how network operators are performing.
We’re a Crown entity, with a Board and Māori Advisory Group appointed by the Minister of Local Government.
Why we were established
We became New Zealand’s drinking water regulator on 15 November 2021.
In August 2016, contaminated drinking water caused a gastroenteritis outbreak in Havelock North, Hawke’s Bay. Over a third of residents (approximately 5,500 people) became ill. Of these, some forty-five people were hospitalised and it is possible that the outbreak contributed to three deaths
We were established by Government in response to this tragedy – taking over as drinking water regulator from the Ministry of Health | Manatū Hauora.
Compliance pathways for registered drinking water suppliers
Registered drinking water suppliers have responsibilities under the law to provide the communities they serve with safe, reliable drinking water.
As regulator, our focus is on protecting public health. To do this, we set out requirements that drinking water suppliers need to meet to deliver on their responsibility to provide safe water.
Some suppliers have different “pathways” they can follow to meet their responsibility to provide their community with safe drinking water. These include:
• following the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules (the Rules) and maintaining a drinking water safety plan
• following an Acceptable Solution
• in some cases, seeking an exemption from some requirements while still ensuring safe water.
In general, the simpler (or lower risk) the drinking water supply, the simpler the requirements.
Compliance option
Drinking water Quality Assurance Rules (the Rules)
High-level information
• The Rules are a compliance option that’s available for all suppliers.
• Suppliers who follow the Rules treat water centrally at a treatment plant and distribute it to buildings through a network of pipes.
• The Rules are modular – suppliers follow the sets of rules that match their supply type or size (e.g. the number of people they serve).
• In general, the simpler the supply, the simpler the Rules.
• Find out more about the Rules
Acceptable Solutions
Exemptions
• An Acceptable Solution is currently one possible compliance pathway for some:
rural supplies that provide water for farm use (e.g. irrigation, stock) as well as for people to drink
drinking water supplies that serve 500 people or fewer.
• Acceptable Solutions enable water to be treated at or near any buildings where people will drink it. This could include using an ‘end-point’ treatment system, which uses filters and ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect the water.
• Find out more about Acceptable Solutions
• In a few situations, it may not be reasonable or practical for a drinking water supplier to meet their legal responsibilities.
• If this is the case, a supplier may choose to apply to become exempt from some of their legal requirements.
• There are currently three types of exemptions available
• When an exemption is in place, drinking water suppliers still need to ensure that the people they serve have safe drinking water.
• Find out more about exemptions
Essential context: safe water
• Find out about the essential role chlorine plays in making drinking water safe
• Find out about a key principle of drinking water safety – the multi-barrier approach
Our role: Drinking water
We regulate drinking water suppliers so that they meet the requirements and standards for delivering safe drinking water. In this capacity we:
• provide information to help suppliers understand their obligations and any options available to meet them
• monitor supplier compliance with their obligations and take action where needed to safeguard public health
• use data and insights to focus the sector on making improvements in the areas of highest public health risk
• publish annual reporting on drinking water sector performance to create transparency and help lift performance over time
• consult with the sector on proposed changes aimed at making providing safe water simpler or more cost-effective for suppliers and communities
• meet our Te Tiriti o Waitangi - Treaty of Waitangi obligations
Find out more
• Find out about the state of drinking water in New Zealand by reading the latest Drinking Water Regulation Report
Our role: wastewater and stormwater
We play a role supporting improvements in the environmental performance of wastewater and stormwater networks. In this capacity we:
• can set measures and standards for network operators to use – in April 2025 we consulted on New Zealand’s first set of proposed national wastewater environmental performance standards
• establish and maintain public registers of wastewater and stormwater networks, so that people have access to information about their local infrastructure
• collect data from network operators on network performance (once measures are in place)
• publish annual reporting on network performance to create transparency and help lift performance over time
• provide the sector with guidance, e.g. best practice guidelines, templates and how-to information
• work collaboratively with related regulators (e.g. Commerce Commission, regional councils) to prevent duplication for the sector
• meet our Te Tiriti o Waitangi - Treaty of Waitangi obligations.
Find out more
• See the public registers for wastewater and stormwater
• For insights into the environmental performance of New Zealand’s water services networks, read the latest Network Environmental Performance Report
Our priorities
Drinking water suppliers play a vital role providing safe, reliable drinking water to support the health and wellbeing of the people in their community.
Day to day, we work to ensure the drinking water sector keeps moving towards ‘better’ – so that public health is protected.
To keep us all moving forward, we prioritise the things that will have the biggest impact - using data and insights to inform our priorities, decisions and actions.
Our Compliance, Monitoring and Enforcement (CME) Strategy provides suppliers with a clear view of our priorities, how we regulate and our expectations of them. Providing this clear view means that suppliers can do their day-to-day work with confidence - because they’re certain what ‘getting it right’ looks like when it comes to managing their supplies
We update our CME Strategy at least every three years and plan to publish an update at the end of July 2025. Our strategy applies to all council drinking water suppliers no matter what water service delivery model they have chosen as part of Local Water Done Well.
Read more about Local Water Done Well
However, in general we’ll continue to be focused on:
• suppliers improving their systems, practices and infrastructure, so that everyone has the basics of safe water in place
• providing easy to understand, how-to information to help suppliers understand and meet their responsibilities
Priority projects for 2025
We’re always laser-focused on our ultimate aim of ‘safe water every day for everyone’.
In support of this, our work programme includes projects aimed at making compliance easier and more cost-effective for drinking water suppliers, wastewater network operators, and the communities they serve.
Find out about our priority projects for 2025
Signalled legislative changes
In August 2024, the Government set out proposed changes to water services legislation that it plans to introduce by the end of 2025. This includes:
• extending the timeframe for currently unregistered supplies to register by an extra three years (to 2028), plus an extra two years (to 2030) to comply with related obligations
• a proposal to exclude domestic drinking water supplies that serve 25 or fewer people from regulation
Read information on Government’s proposed changes on the Department of Internal Affairs website