It was gratifying attending the public day on March 23 after the official opening the day before, of the new automated Waiari water supply plant at Te Puke.

People I spoke to referred to the inspired decision taken by the 1996 council to run with the microfiltration system, in the face of public opposition and a local action group. The Joyce Rd plant replacing a defunct water plant, inherited from Mount Maunganui Borough Council, was the first microfiltration plant in NZ.

This system prevents all kinds of lurgy in our water supply. Budgeted at $22 million that plant cost $18 million and opened in 1998. Next up was Oropi and from memory cost around $40 million about 10 years later.

Waiari was delayed in 2008 due to the Global Financial Crisis and in 2023 has cost $197 million. The costs of delay are astronomical. Our city now has three independent but interconnected water supplies – which gives reasonable security of supply in the event of disaster.

Failure to priorities essential infrastructure has cost ratepayers plenty. You won't need museums and other so called ‘mind nourishing' amenities if water doesn't come and go.

Former Mayor Noel Pope said that pipes in the ground don't make for electoral success – and he was right. Public interest in basic infrastructure ceases when they turn on a tap or flush a toilet.

It only becomes important when – or if – nothing happens. Tauranga ratepayers have once again funded infrastructure for Western Bay of Plenty District Council, which although holding 25 per cent of the resource consent have spent nil dollars on the plant and continue to supply second class water.

All this in the hope that the Three Waters proposal will come to pass and they will escape (again) the capital costs. In my opinion, they have ridden on the coat-tails of Tauranga ratepayers for too much for too long. It's time they fronted for their responsibilities.

The new plant appears a state-of-the-art complex and the automated microfiltration technology has developed spectacularly. For example, the filter tubes now last 10 years or more whereas in the beginning they lasted a year or so. Well done to designers, consultants, builders, staff and most of all Tauranga ratepayers on the long overdue completion of the project.

Tauranga must retain this jewel in our infrastructure crown and strenuously oppose Three Waters. Unfortunately Tauranga's unelected, government-appointed Commissioners support Three Waters along with Local Government NZ. Three Waters is nothing more that theft of ratepayers' assets and has to be stopped. We paid up for microfiltration when others chose to spend up on other things.

Bill Faulkner, Otumoetai.