Specific details about the leak at the Mount Hot Pools, which was causing water temperature fluctuations, are now known.

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In a media statement, Tauranga City Aquatics Limited board chairman Warren Banks has said the scale of the leak amounts to a pouring of 50 cubic metres of water into the pools daily.

He equates this to two tankers worth of water each day.

This water was not heated, estimated to be about 14 degrees each day, and it was this water causing erratic temperatures in the pools.

In the statement, Warren says it was impossible to trace the leak because of a back-up system, which topped up water in the pools to make sure of a steady level.

'The pools when built in the 1980s have never had separate water meters so it was impossible, until these were added in May 2011, to detect when makeup water was being added,” says Warren.

'Normally separate meters are not designed into pool facilities, but following this experience we have also had meters fitted to Baywave TECT Aquatic Centre pools this week.

'Following monitoring of the water meters for a week we were able to detect significant make up water continually being added to the children's and passive pools.”

He says finding the leak was also difficult because the pools are also constructed on a sand base so water did not rise to the surface, but instead leeched away in the sand base.

'Such leakage puts the whole pipe work and pool foundation system under pressure and may have contributed to other pipe breaks due to the age of the piping (mid 1980s) and design of this pipe work layered above each other in a single trench.”

Warren says replacement of pipe work and filtration and heating systems was planned as part of the Hot Pools Redevelopment.

This project was terminated this year by Commissioner Greg Hill; creating uncertainty over when the repair works would be done.

'This work had not been actioned due to project approval hold-ups and recently the resource consent decision which is now being appealed.”