The progress made by the Rarotonga water authority, To Tatou Vai (TTV), in its bid to deliver quality water service to the residents has left a great impression on its first chief executive.

Brent Manning, who returned to Rarotonga after four years, was attending the 8^th Pacific Water and Wastewater Ministers Forum and the 15^th Pacific Water and Wastewater Conference and Expo at the National Auditorium.

Manning, a civil engineer from New Zealand, was hired by the government in 2018 to set up a water entity in the Cook Islands.

He served as the founding chief executive of To Tatou Vai before stepping down in early 2020.

Manning weathered plenty of storms in his 15 months tenure with water disinfection being the major one, after he pushed ahead government’s preferred choice of chlorination. However, the most significant criticism centered on his perceived failure to adequately consult with the community.

Speaking to Cook Islands News last week, Manning emphasised that the developments at TTV over the years since he left were quite impressive.

He reminded the public that water crisis and challenges were not limited to Cook Islands as other countries such as New Zealand have challenges with water as well.

“Really impressed and pleased to see the way TTV has developed and moved on since I left and the water quality that they’ve been producing is really good from the way I see it,” Manning said.

“With the 15 months that I was here, there were definitely water challenges then and still are but with what’s being produced through these treatment systems that have now been operating it’s far, far superior than what we had before that.”

Manning said a major achievement he had witnessed with TTV was the organisational capacity, “staff that I employed that are still here that have obviously been trained and got qualifications and they definitely have the experience”.

“The organisation seems a bit hard and they’ve got some great people and they really know their stuff and ideally that’s what I wanted them to be at the time when we haven’t fully taken over the plant which is really pleasing to see,” Manning added.

“This is the first time I’ve been up to this valley in four years and the condition on this side of the infrastructure is very good and better than I expected, given that four years of sometimes challenging environmental conditions here.

“And it’s probably testament to the quality of the built, the work that is done by the infrastructure. I’m an engineer and I can honestly comment and say that it looks like a very good quality.”

When asked about solutions he thinks Cook Islands should consider in order to overcome its current water challenges, Manning said that To Tatou Vai would be best equipped to provide answers.

However, Manning explained that challenges such as water supply, sanitation and management were among the many addressed at the conference. These included questions about who should pay for water and how it should be paid for.

Manning, who was attending his first ever Pacific Water and Wastewater Association conference, said one of the main challenges with water across the Pacific as well as New Zealand was “access”. He also stressed that sustaining and maintaining water infrastructure requires significant investment.

“There’s a lot of initiatives throughout the Pacific on reducing non-revenue water, which is water that’s not being wasted and we have exactly that challenge in New Zealand as well,” he said.

According to Manning, there’s no easy solutions to any of these challenges but it takes a lot of combined efforts and working with communities to achieve it.

“I came up here in my own rights just to see how things are … I’ve just been really impressed as well with all the activities across the Pacific,” he said.

“I live and work in New Zealand now and to be honest, there’s a number of initiatives being developed in various islands that are actually quite ahead of where we are in New Zealand.”

The Pacific Water and Wastewater Conference and Expo concluded with an award presentation on Thursday evening followed by a site visit on Friday.

Pacific Water and Wastewater Association chair, Fuimaono Dominic Schwalger told this newspaper that Solomon Islands will host next year’s conference.

Fuimaono said the Ministerial Forum was also successful “and now it is up to the Ministers looking at how to elevate and communicate (the issues) to the next level, the Pacific Islands Forum”.

“We’re hoping to have the conference before the Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting in Solomon Islands and hopefully we get to make it on the agenda,” he added.

“The challenge in the Pacific islands is the scarcity of the individual member countries. We have so many members and across the Pacific Ocean, it’s not easy and the main challenge is climate change that we’re facing like the extreme weather events as well as trying to recover post-Covid.

“There were also a lot of discussions on leveraging of technology to supplement the existence of the surface water and the systems that we’re using now.”