Water restrictions, boil notice affect town

It is not quite a pub with no beer - but it definitely has a liquid shortage.

Ranfurly Hotel co-owner Simon Hickman said severe water restrictions and a boil water notice, issued for Ranfurly on Wednesday, meant they could not use their fountain drink mixer, make ice or use their coffee machine.

"It’s a pain in the arse," Mr Hickman said.

While he could work around the problem using bottled drinks and not offering espresso coffee, his biggest complaint was the way the council had communicated the notice.

"My son knew about it at school before we did."

The Central Otago District Council issued a press release at 10.40am on Wednesday saying they had posted a notice on the council website and Facebook page.

The notice said the Ranfurly water reservoirs were critically low which could compromise drinking-water safety.

Water restrictions continued and there should only be critical use of water, the notice said.

Tankers with drinking water were in place at the Maniototo Area School, St John’s school and the Maniototo Hospital by noon on Wednesday.

Mr Hickman said he did have a phone call from the council late on Wednesday afternoon.

"It’s not good enough in this day and age. Why didn’t we get an email?"

Using social media and local radio was not enough, he said.

While he had the radio on he was not listening while working and he did not follow social media, Mr Hickman said.

Floral & Feast cafe owners cousins Raelene and Joanna Huddleston said they had rejigged their coffee machine to run water from a jerry can and were filling containers at the council water tanker each day.

It was hard to adjust. Joanna said a customer asked to have their water bottle refilled and she said yes before realising they had to conserve the water they had collected from the tanker.

Raelene said her personal challenge was that her 1-year-old son wore cloth nappies.

However, she was taking the council advice to take laundry out of town.

Her mother, who lived a short distance away but had her own water bore, was on laundry duty until the restrictions were lifted.

The Hair Studio owner Becky McAuley said it was business as usual at her Ranfurly hairdressing salon.

While she filled up at the water tankers for home use she had to continue to wash the salon’s towels and her clients’ hair.

"I can’t operate without doing that," Mrs McAuley said.

E-Central cafe owner Di Brenssell said their coffee machine heated water to boiling so they were able to carry on as usual.

Mrs Brenssell thought there should have been a tanker put near the cycle trail.

There was no way for cyclists to know where to get water, she said.

The council water services team said it had notified businesses, including cycle trail operators, of the situation by social media, email, telephone, radio, the Central app and signage posted by Fulton Hogan.

Water services manager Ian Evans said a water conservation notice was put out last Friday but water levels continued to drop faster than expected during the weekend.

Water levels were slowly recovering but would take time without rain, Mr Evans said.

Yesterday the council advised Naseby residents, via Facebook and the council website, that their water supply would be shut down from midnight for up to three hours to install a flow meter to measure water use in the town.