Te Mana o te Wai - Valuing our water

Water is such an integral part of our business and our lives outside the parameters of work that we want to mark World Water Day and celebrate the fantastic efforts our Citycare Water team make today and every day.

“It’s important to recognise the value of water in our society and not take for granted our ease of access to clean drinking water and the benefits of healthy waterways in New Zealand,” Citycare Water Chief Executive Tim Gibson says.

“We acknowledge the extensive work our teams undertake in communities all over the country to keep drinking water, stormwater and wastewater networks running smoothly,” he says.   

“Ensuring clean water and healthy waterways is an essential job and for us it’s a commitment to the environment, our communities and future generations which we focus on 24/7,” he says. 

One way this commitment is brought to life is the hero partnership Citycare Water and Citycare Property have with the Student Volunteer Army and its primary schools programme, which gives 30,000 students practical project experience to help make their world a better place.

The kids develop and carry out a plan and many of them choose to focus on healthy waterways for their projects.

For example, in 2020 at Masterton Intermediate the kids focused on improving local streams as the water flow had become stagnated, the water quality had deteriorated, and some parts of the river had become quite smelly.

The pupils helped their community by cleaning up the area and cleaning weeds out of the river.

At Heaton Normal Intermediate School in Christchurch pupils spent a day planting 300 native trees to keep a local river clean and could literally see their impact on their local environment at the end of the day.

Many schools designed and implemented campaigns to stop waste or oil going down drains.

The project done by Weston School near Oamaru aimed to reduce plastic entering waterways.

The students painted around stormwater drains to make the community aware of rubbish going down the drains and picked up rubbish to remove plastic from the environment.

At Alexandra School the students did riparian planting along the Manuherikia River, painted around storm drains to make the community aware of rubbish going down the drains and created stormwater drain traps to catch litter going into the drain system.

“These pupils’ aims and actions and the positive impact they have made in their community match what Citycare Water teams accomplish daily and it’s a pleasure to support such initiatives,” Tim says.