Click photo to enlarge
Peter McPherson, Clutha District councillor on the West
Otago ward, holds a jar of water that was pumped through
the Tapanui reticulation at the weekend. Photo by Rachel
Taylor.
West Otago councillor Peter McPherson is demanding action
over the problem of dirty water, which affected hundreds of
Tapanui residents last weekend.
Cr McPherson yesterday attended the Clutha District Council
meeting with a jam jar of dirty water as evidence of what had
been pumped through the town's domestic supply.
"The people of Tapanui shouldn't have to put up with this,"
he said, holding up the jar.
"People want to know what sort of compensation they will get,
because they have washed their clothes in this water.
"We need to find a way of stopping that sort of thing
happening."
The Tapanui water reservoir dropped last week following a
period of high demand.
Fulton Hogan's attempts to increase the treatment plant's
production rate was unsuccessful and the level continued to
fall, activating an alarm, which was acknowledged by the
alarm monitoring service, but not passed on to Fulton Hogan.
Cr McPherson asked the council if they could call into
question the contractor.
"Anyone who is a contractor and makes a mistake has to front
up," he said.
"I would question whether they had the number of staff they
said they had. Their system failed to correct this. The
people of Tapanui shouldn't have to put up with this."
In response to Cr McPherson's questions, manager district
assets Jules Witt said two things went wrong.
"The attempt by Fulton Hogan to increase the flow rate was
unsuccessful, and the answering service failed to pass on the
alarm to the contractor."
He said the council was reviewing the incident with Fulton
Hogan, to ensure these circumstances did not occur again.
- Rachel Taylor
rachel.taylor@odt.co.nz
