Of late, there has been a great deal more of it than anyone knows what to do with.
Nonetheless, the issue, like a persistent spring, continues to bubble up into the public arena.
One indirect stream of water consciousness has arisen through "dirty dairying" - though more concerned with the pollutant effects of effluent and nitrogen-rich farm run-off on the state of rivers for fishing and swimming in than, perhaps, as a determinant on cost and supply of domestic water.
Equally, the arguments over the Government's sacking of Environment Canterbury, ostensibly locked in a "no-winners" political stalemate over water rights, allocation and storage, have been as much about "democracy" - or, as opponents of the move maintain, the removal of it - as they have been about water per se.
But the Local Government Amendment Bill and the passage of its first reading through Parliament promises to bring the issue home to a greater number of consumers.
On Saturday, protests were held in a number of New Zealand cities against the Bill, the effect of which, it is claimed, will be nothing less than the "privatisation" of water provision and supply in New Zealand.
As is often the case, there is some hyperbole in such claims.
Local Government Minister Rodney Hide's Bill seeks to remove "unnecessary barriers to water infrastructure development by reducing restrictions on private sector involvement in the delivery of water services.
The intention is to provide local authorities, and their communities, with greater flexibility in choosing methods for delivering water services and developing water infrastructure".
The Bill, if enacted as envisaged, will enable local authorities to contract out supply of water services for a period of up to 35 years, from a current limit of 15 years.
It will allow them to delegate aspects of water services management to contractors, or to lease water assets from the private sector, "provided that the assets are transferred to the local authority at the end of the period of the agreement".
Importantly, however, local authorities will not, as is the case in the existing legislation, "be permitted to sell or privatise water services or to enter into legal agreements that transfer the responsibility for delivering water services".
At issue here is how water services are maintained and upgraded.
Mr Hide's Bill seems to favour private public partnerships (PPPs) in the management and supply of water, and especially in the provision of future infrastructure.
The argument is that companies specialising in such areas have the expertise and wherewithal to do so with greater precision and efficiencies than local government and, furthermore, will bring "market" disciplines to bear on water operations.
Mr Hide points out the provision already exists for such PPPs to exist but the 15-year limit on the term of the "franchise" is a severe deterrent on the willingness of water specialist operations to make the necessary commitment and investment.
While there may be continuing arguments about how such "disciplines" are achieved, there is little doubt that, as a society that has always squandered water as if it were, well ... water, disciplines over usage are required.
New Zealand is naturally well placed with respect to this increasingly rare and valuable global "commodity", but this is more a reflection of natural abundance rather than good or farsighted management.
Water will in future have to be allocated and governed with a much tighter oversight and regulatory framework than has been the case in the past.
The questions to be considered now mainly concern the how rather than the why.
Should councils begin metering to introduce some form of user-pays arrangement; should they contract out the problem and get private entities to do it for them; or, failing those options, should rates simply rise to meet rising costs of introducing new, and replacing old, infrastructure? Mr Hide's Local Government Amendment Bill leaves that choice open to individual councils - and thus to the communities that elect them.
Whatever its fate, it should at least have the effect of galvanising communities to focus on one of the pressing issues of our times: water - who owns it, who should supply and manage it, and how should it be paid for?
