Report on Water

Auckland’s Water Supply

Have you ever wondered where the water in your tap comes from?  Well, say you are a drop of water, you probably started off in the Tasman Sea.  One fine sunny day the sun would come out and warm you up.  Soon you evaporate upwards and form into a cloud.  Soon you join your friends (the other water drops) to form a bigger cloud.  The cloud is blown by the wind, over to the Waitakere and Hunua Ranges.

A few days later when it’s a cold and misty day it rains.  You fall into one of the Waitakere and Hunua Ranges 12 dams.  We fall into the Mangatangi Dam which holds 35.3 gigalitres (that is 35.3 billion litres) of water!!! 

The 12 dams in the rangers give us 80% of our water. The rest comes from rivers and wells.

While you are sitting in the Mangatangi Dam the dam starts the water cleaning process.  The dirt in the water falls to the bottom of the lake taking the bugs with it. After you've been sitting around for a while getting clean, and kind of bored, you suddenly start to move again.  You’re off to one of the 4 treatment plants.

There are 4 steps to cleaning our water. Screening, coagulation, clarification and filtration and disinfection.  Screening removes big bits like leaves and bugs.  Clarification and filtration removes small bits of dirt.  Last the disinfection kills the bugs.  That is done by Chlorine (but only a little bit).  Last they add some fluoride which helps to keep our teeth clean and strong!!

Now you’re super clean like after the best ever bath (like the one I just had).  You are ready to fulfill your destiny. You are travelling through the pipes to the storage tanks (that’s were you get kept until someone turns their tap on).

Every week Auckland people use around 3 billion litres of water….. That is a lot of water – or about 1.5 million swimming pools worth!!!

So there you go, down someone’s mouth to help power their body.  Hope you had a fantastic trip!  Thanks for reading, and remember, water is precious so don’t waste it!!!!!!

By Alex M.