Gisborne can now produce a significant amount of drinking water during severe weather events through a first-of-its-kind filtration unit that converts seawater into fresh, drinkable water for 10,000 people per day.
In another boost to the region’s emergency response capacity, with Tairāwhiti Emergency Management (Temo) group manager Ben Green said there was now more capability in Tairāwhiti than what can be deployed anywhere else in the country.
A Temo technology demonstration day held at Gisborne’s inner harbour on Friday, and attended by Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell, featured a filtration unit demonstration by its Australian engineers.
The unit, named the Garrison, weighed 300kg, fitted on the back of a ute and produced 1000 litres of drinkable water per hour.
LEDI founder Dael Liddicoat developed the Garrison, alongside LEDI systems engineer Rhys McCormack.
A touch screen display meant a university degree was not needed to use it, Liddicoat said.
The new unit was a follow-on from its predecessor — the AquaGen system — developed by Liddicoat, which was the size of a large suitcase and could produce 90 litres an hour from salt water or 200 litres from freshwater.
Liddicoat said the system ran through a UV sterilisation on the output which killed bacteria to make sure it was fit for consumption.
It was designed to support small communities that might be cut off in a disaster situation, he said.
Tairāwhiti had 21 of the AquaGen systems available in rural, remote communities.
Green initially brought six into the region and Ngati Porou Taiao ordered another 15.
Liddicoat said the idea for the Garrison came when they started looking at what they could do on a larger scale to support a bigger community during emergencies.
The Garrison and AquaGen systems had similar designs, running consumable pre-filtration at the front.
“You buy the filters to replace both of these things down at the local hardware store,” Liddicoat said. Basically, the systems pressurise water, then push it through what’s called “reverse osmosis”.
“The systems that are in this [are the] same systems that you can see inside a large-scale desalination plant. So we’ve basically miniaturised that technology into this case to be portable.”
Liddicoast said the high-pressure pump inside was powered using the same technology as electric vehicles.
The motor was rated for upwards of 20,000 hours of continuous use and needed to be serviced after 8000 hours of use.
“So the idea is that nothing inside the box will ever need to be replaced.”
It could be plugged into generators and solar panels and had an internal battery that lasted an hour.
Need for the emergency response across NZ
During his introduction to the unit, Mitchell said Gisborne had had 25 severe weather events in the last five years that had either gone to or been near a local state of emergency.
“The reality is, we are a country that is going to continue to be hit with weather events.”
In his short time as minister there had already been eight local states of emergency declared, including the recent fire in Selwyn, Canterbury, he said.
“There’s a big commitment to make sure that the Government invests in New Zealand’s systems to ensure that it is best placed to continue to deal with these events.”
National Emergency Management Agency chief executive Dave Gawn said the units were just one element of the innovative approach that New Zealand needed to create an affordable, well-resourced system across the country.
The genesis of the idea
Speaking with Local Democracy Reporting, Liddicoat said he developed a small purifier in 2019 to develop water for helicopter engines. It was not designed for drinking water but was making purified water.
Engineers Australia wrote an article on it, which Green, who had been trying to find similar technology, saw and he contacted Liddicoat to see if he could design something to fill the region’s needs.
“I sort of got a good idea of what you guys needed exactly and developed the AquaGen which was brought to Gisborne in December last year as the demonstrator,” Liddicoat said.
“We’ve done this in cost for this development because Gisborne will be running a fair bit of our testing for us.
“I guess that’s the benefit of being early adopters; you don’t have to pay.”
They had received interest from other regions in New Zealand, he said.
Local Democracy Reporting is local-body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
