The water is back on in Gore, as the district council lifted the no-drinking alert late Monday night, putting an end to the weekend of dry taps.
Tests on Monday night were delayed, but results showed a third consecutive day of nitrate level reduction across the network.
Gore District Council general manager of critical services Jason Domigan was relieved the notice had been lifted.
It was a full-on weekend for the council’s Three Waters staff, and Mr Domigan said, in a statement, he was happy with how staff and the community handled the problem.
"Our team has put in some big hours over the weekend, so there will be some big sighs of relief down at the treatment plant.
"The guys down there work so hard to keep our water safe, and they’ve been just gutted by something they have little control over."
The saga, which had Gore residents lining up for water from five tankers around the town and grocery stores emptied of bottled water, would now be investigated.
Environment Southland and Taumata Arowai would look into the increased nitrate levels and Mr Domigan said the community would be informed if further changes occurred.
Gore District Mayor Ben Bell said council staff had put in a lot of mahi over the weekend, which made all the difference.
"The team put in a lot of hard hours and worked incredibly diligently over the weekend to make sure people had drinking water with the tankers.
"They did an incredible job there," he said.
Mr Bell acknowledged there was room for improvement, but for the first event of its kind he was satisfied with how the council’s efforts panned out.
"With hindsight, there’s things we can improve on but the community responded really well and made sure they were looking out for one another, which is all you can ask for as a mayor."
If a future event did occur, Mr Bell said they were more prepared now and would have answers for the community after a review was conducted.
"We will look at having more nitrate testing, more often with these higher levels," he said.
"Now we’ve had a response like this, we know the ropes, so a response will be quicker.
"We’ll do more of a review once the team has recovered, and come back to the community for suggestions."
