Then in April the council said the cost of the project was $13.5 million, but sources have told the Northland Age it could end up being $20 million-plus to complete.

The council said at that time, that the final approved budget for the scheme is $13,630,171, including $3m from the Provincial Growth Fund.

And as of this week, the council still cannot say when Kaitāia residents will get the Sweetwater water through their taps.

When asked about the reasons for the delay, a council spokesperson said it is continuing to test bore infrastructure at the Sweetwater site to achieve a consistent raw water flow of 150m3/hour.

‘’Until that goal is achieved, we will not be supplying any water to the Kaitāia township,’’ the spokesperson said.

‘’In May, a test spanning 48 hours showed encouraging results with the bores yielding a supply of approximately 140m3/hr. We are now working on a plan to refine and extend testing.’’

The council said the $13.5 million figure provided in April relates to works conducted since the 2021 financial year.

‘’The council’s finance team is now preparing a report on the total cost incurred over the entire life of the project. The $20 million figure cited has not been substantiated by this work.’’

However, sources have said that the project will easily exceed $20 million, with major issues along the way upping the costs.

The council first started to explore using the Sweetwater aquifer in 2010, when then-Far North Mayor Wayne Brown made an agreement with avocado grower Tony Hayward.

At that stage it was estimated that the project would cost around $2.6m, but by October 2020, the cost had ballooned to an estimated $15.3m.

One production well [PW1] was drilled at Sweetwater in 2010 and a concept design produced in 2011.

But there was no further activity on the project until 2019 when FNDC passed a resolution to confirm the Sweetwater bore site as the preferred option for an additional supply for Kaitāia .

The scope of the project at that stage was defined as; installation of two water bores into the deep shellbed aquifer at the Sweetwater site; a primary sedimentation structure, 125m3 buffer tanks, 60L/s booster pump station, power supply and telemetry at the Sweetwater site, and construction of 14.2km of new DN315 water main from the bores to the existing Kaitāia water treatment plant (WTP).

Excluded from the scope were any infrastructure changes required to ensure that both aquifer and Awanui River water could be treated and blended.

Council chief executive Guy Holroyd said in January that the project to access water from the aquifer at Sweetwater was launched after Northland’s 2020 drought.

‘’In just three years, we have drilled new bores, come to agreement with several landowners to allow a pipeline to cross their land and built that pipeline to Kaitāia,’’ Holroyd said.

Holroyd said the site blessing in June 2022 was to celebrate completed infrastructure construction.

When asked why it had taken so long to get the system up and running, when it was supposed to have been supplying water in May last year, he said operational commissioning needed to be determined and tested.

There has also been a collapse of bores at Sweetwater, and issues with silica in the water, but the council’s plan would confirm the treatment and commissioning of the supply.

The council said compensation had been paid to several landowners where pipelines had to cross, but would not say how much.