About WIS

About the Water Information Services Team

Water Information Services employs Johanna Rodgers as an administrator and telemetry coordinator, Francess Mitchell as data administrator and Kate Jefferd as Technical Advisor.

Jo Rodgers

Jo’s role is to make sure that all the consent holders in HB who have to record their water take are doing this and that the records of the water takes are as accurate as possible. This means that she is involved in a wide variety of work including:

• Communicating with consent holders about their new consents and what they have to do.
• Managing the data entry website
• Managing the telemetry data
• Working with the telemetry providers when there are problems or missing data
• Answering questions from consent holders
• Managing the meter installation records
• Ensuring that all the data collected is of the highest possible standard so that it can also be used by consent holders for managing their water use, applying for new consents and GAP reports. The Science team also use the data to make decisions about the future of water use in Hawke’s Bay.

Jo is almost always available as she is mostly based in the office at the Regional Council and you can call her directly 06 833 8043 or email here if you have any questions or problems.

Francess Mitchell

Francess is part-time in support of Jo in her role. Francess comes from a background of Environmental Monitoring both at the Regional Council and Auckland Council, and has also previously been involved with water resources and consents at Gisborne District Council. She has a good knowledge of telemetry systems, databases and consent processes /conditions. Answering enquiries, troubleshooting data issues and data management continues to build on her current knowledge of consented water use, water meters and data return methods in Hawke’s Bay.   

Kate Jefferd

Kate joined WIS in January 2017, after having completed 4 years study at Canterbury University and having spent two summers working at the Gisborne District Council in their Water and Coastal team. Kate’s role is predominantly field based, and aims to assist consent holders with any water related queries, specifically around irrigation and water metering. Her work involves:

• Regular site visits to understand different consent holder set ups and meet to discuss and solve problems
• Advising consent holders and service providers on meter installation and verification under the Water Metering Regulations, and helping to interpret consent conditions
• Advising and approving meter installations that are not the norm
• Co-ordinating for the Irrigation NZ Magazine, and working with Irrigation NZ in managing the Accredited Blue Tick companies who are working in Hawke’s Bay
• Data quality auditing and interpretation
• Ensuring the Regional Council is a leader and nationally consistent with other Council’s for providing consent holder services
• Telemetry field work
• Water meter verification audits

If you would like to contact Kate you can email her at Kate.Jefferd@hbrc.govt.nz or call her on 06 833 8004