If the plans for the supplies that deliver tap water to Patearoa and Ranfurly are not considered to be an adequate water quality safeguard, the regulator could direct the council to issue long-term boil water notices for the communities instead.
Council staff delivered the news to the mayor and councillors at a full meeting of the council held in Alexandra yesterday.
The crux of the problem is the lack of effective protozoa barriers that protect against single-cell parasites such as giardia and cryptosporidium — the latter of which caused a public health scare in Queenstown in 2023, resulting in an 11-week boil water notice for central suburbs.
Council Three Waters group manager Julie Muir told the meeting staff had been negotiating with the regulator over the past fortnight, doing all they could to avoid an ongoing boil water notice that would need to last until December, when installation of the barriers was scheduled to happen.
While ‘‘the easiest’’ thing the council could have done was put in place a long-term boil water notice, staff were ‘‘trying to avoid that’’, Ms Muir said.
Her concern was ‘‘alarm fatigue’’ — the idea that the community would not act on a blanket, ongoing request to constantly boil tap water, particularly as, in her view, the risk to health had not fundamentally changed in any way.
‘‘Nothing’s actually changed from a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, but the standards are now being rigorously applied,’’ she said.
‘‘But it has taken quite a lot of work to achieve that.’’
Ms Muir indicated the safety plans proposed to Taumata Arowai to mitigate risk would likely result in more short-term boil notices for both communities between now and December — but, when that happened, the community should understand it was because of a ‘‘heightened risk, something has changed, and they needed to take a greater level of care’’, she said.
Deputy mayor Neil Gillespie said the council needed to focus on appropriate engagement with the affected communities once next steps were decided upon.
‘‘I’m not saying we’re not doing a good job ... but I suppose the key thing is that it is really important that the communities are aware of what’s happening and what the outcomes are going to be.’’
Advising water users of ‘‘treatment deficiencies and potential risks to health’’ was one of Taumata Arowai’s demands of the council, as was additional monitoring and analysis of the water supplies.
In response to councillor Stuart Duncan asking if she was frustrated by the direction taken by Taumata Arowai, Ms Muir said, ‘‘I would say my role is becoming incredibly challenging’’.
