Our Council has stationed a water tanker at the parking area opposite our service centre at 355 Kapanga Road and another at Patukirikiri Reserve, Wharf Road.

The tankers will be available 24 hours a day until the boil water notice has been cancelled. The tankers will be replaced when empty, however there may be a short delay between the tanker being emptied and replaced.

Please bring your own containers to fill from the tankers. Collection of water from the tankers is free. We ask you to ensure that any container you are using to fill from the tanker is clean. If you are at all uncertain about the cleanliness of the container you are using to fill from the tanker, please boil water at a rolling boil for at least two minutes prior to consumption. A rolling boil is a constant boil. Bringing water to boil in a kettle that shuts off automatically upon boiling will not constitute a rolling boil for two minutes.

We have:

• Been in communication with the Waikato District Health Board regarding this matter and that they have been very supportive of the way we have handled this.
• All cafes and the rest home have been visited. Cafes have received a follow-up call to tell them the tankers have arrived in town.
• Boil water notices have been printed and laminated for Veolia to place at public taps.
• The two medical centres and pharmacy have been called and asked to report any uptake in people presenting with symptoms that may be related to drinking water and that they be referred to the DHB.
• Posters have been printed and laminated for Veolia to attach to the tankers.

How did this happen?

The treatment process involves raw water coming into the treatment plant. The raw water is cycled through a large machine called a clarifier which ‘cleans’ the water prior to it being treated through the filters. The larger-than-usual volumes of very dirty water reaching the treatment plant have caused the clarifier to work at an increasingly slower pace, meaning less water has been able to be produced and reservoir levels have dropped.

A combination of the continuation of very dirty water reaching the treatment plant, the power failure which occurred on Sunday night, and a leak in one of the chemical pipes at the treatment plant finally caused the clarifier to be overloaded. The ongoing dirty water issue is also hampering efforts to bring the clarifier back on-line.

Our Council, along with our contractor, Veolia, are working around the clock to rectify this issue, however we believe it will take up to four days for the process to be completed. This involves bringing the clarifier back on-line, making sufficient clean water to flush all systems and complete testing to ensure water meets drinking standards. Until this time, a Boil Water Notice will be in place as a precaution to users.