Water supply

Water supply to Lower Hutt, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington

High quality water is essential for the health and wellbeing of our region.  Residents and businesses in the cities of Lower Hutt, Porirua, Upper Hutt and Wellington are all supplied water by Wellington Water, a council-controlled organisation owned by Greater Wellington Regional Council, Upper Hutt City Council, Hutt City Council, Porirua City Council and Wellington City Council.

Greater Wellington owns the assets involved in the supply of bulk water, including:

• Four water treatment plants, 15 pumping stations and just over 180 kilometres of large-diameter pipelines
• Managing assets with a book value of $464 million

Wellington Water's role is:

• Supplying enough water each day - around 140 million litres on average - to meet the needs of around 400,000 people
• Maintaining a high quality of treated water, consistent with New Zealand's drinking water standards

Planning to ensure that the water needs of future generations can be met

Providing the region's water supply costs around $26 million dollars annually, or 52 cents per thousand litres. Each week enough high-quality water to fill Wellington's Westpac Stadium is delivered to homes and businesses across the region.

For more information on water supply visit the Wellington Water website. 

History of our water supply
Greater Wellington Regional Council has published an historical account of the trials and tribulations of our region's water history - Our water history - on tap. It charts our progress from the early days of settlers gathering water from streams, rooftops and shallow wells and concludes with the development of modern water treatment plants and outlines the challenges about our future supply.