Council admits mistakes

Jules Witt.
Jules Witt.
The Clutha District Council has admitted mistakes were made investigating alerts at the Moa Flat Water Treatment plant in West Otago.

Residents on the scheme were warned earlier in the year to limit usage as water levels dropped at the pond and flow was reduced. The warning has been lifted and the water level and flow has returned to normal.

However, West Otago Community Board member John Herbert was concerned errors were made when investigating the issues at the treatment plant.

Documents provided to the Otago Daily Times state on July 12 the pond level had started to drop but a routine inspection the following day said there were ''no problems noted''.

Two telemetry rate-of-change alarms were activated on July 15 and 16 and no problems were noted following routine inspections.

Contractors were also unaware at the time one of the alarms had been activated. It was not until Fulton Hogan contractors investigated a service request logged by water treatment plant chairman Peter Adam was it discovered the overflow standpipe was broken off at the base.

Mr Herbert said it only required someone to look at the catchment pond to realise the level had dropped.

Clutha District Council service delivery manager Jules Witt said the standpipe was repaired on July 21 but a silt trap on the water plant was blocked with debris on July 23.

This caused further issues as the reservoir was normally at a higher capacity but the low water level meant there was ''a rush'' to clear the blockage.

Poor weather conditions had also made access to the treatment plant difficult and the blockage could not be cleared until August 30.

A meeting last week of Mr Herbert, Mr Adam, council staff and contractors helped identify key issues so the council could ''learn from what has happened'', Mr Witt said. He said errors were made and the council and contractors were working to ensure the same mistakes were not repeated.

''We're confident what we've got in place will mean there will be advance notification so the right people will know and we can have some discussions about it.''

Critical alerts will now be directed to council staff and more thorough inspections will take place in the event of an alert being triggered.

Mr Herbert said the meeting was productive.

He was happy the rate-of-change alarms would be treated as critical and would be sent to the council so the information was ''not lost in the fog'' of other alerts.

Add a Comment