Most councils should have critical water treatment barriers installed by the end of the year, according to an update from the country’s water authority.
But far from all, according to information obtained by 1News.
The Water Services Authority — Taumata Arowai has been monitoring progress on councils drinking water supplies since the Queenstown cryptosporidium outbreak in 2023 when many people became ill.
There were 97 people linked to the outbreak – three of whom required hospital treatment.
It was later revealed that “human faecal matter” may have been the likely cause of the outbreak — but was not conclusive.
The Authority advised 29 councils that lacked protozoa, bacterial or residual disinfection treatment barriers to provide a funded plan to install them by the end of 2025.
“At the time, this involved 98 supplies (drinking water sources) serving 655,150 people,” Taumata Arowai said.
As of this month, 41 drinking supplies through 14 of the councils have the barriers up and running — providing 227,038 people with safer drinking water through “cost-effective” plans.
But an Official Information Act request obtained by 1News shows 10 councils will either not meet the current December deadline, have deferred it or have another compliance pathway.
The water service watchdog has kept a close eye on a select few where thousands will likely still be at risk.
Authority head of operations Steve Taylor told 1News there’s a “small number of suppliers serving a population of about 11,000 people” – or roughly 20 suppliers – “that are taking a bit longer than we would ideally like to get those barriers in place.”
Among them is the Tasman District Council, which has “about five supplies affected”, he said.
“The advice is that the plan that they provided to us in about June of last year set aside some funding to commit to installation of industry barriers. They’ve subsequently advised that that funding is no longer available.”
In a statement, the Tasman District Council told 1News “while the district’s largest settlement is compliant with water quality rules, other supplies have degrees of non-compliance including data quality issues, chlorination, and protozoa treatment.”
“Efforts to provide essential systems will be considered in their Annual Plan discussions over the coming weeks.”
Warnings of history repeating itself
The Water Services Authority has warned councils without the critical barriers to install them or potentially see history repeat itself.
Not having a protozoa treatment barrier was “a likely factor in the 2023 Queenstown cryptosporidiosis outbreak”. Multi-barrier protection is now in place for the region, Taylor said.
“Having multiple barriers in place means that if one fails, others are there as back-ups to help prevent, or reduce, the chance of public health being impacted.”
He praised water suppliers for their “very good” headway towards installing the barriers.
“We appreciate the work put in by councils to make this happen,” he added.
Taylor said a “multi-barrier approach” is critical to ensuring the public has safe drinking water.
“It is a regulatory requirement for drinking water suppliers and requires a range of safeguards in place to prevent people from getting sick from their drinking water,” he said.
Queenstown Lakes District Council Mayor Glyn Lewers reiterated Taylor’s calls to install the barriers.
“You might have to actually rate a bit higher, but you don’t want to go through what Queenstown Lakes went through,” Lewers said.
While most councils are being praised for their investment – some in the tens of millions – water scientist Brent Gilpin from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ERS) told 1News it’s “only half the job”.
“Once we have all this great kit and gear installed, we really need to invest in the people who operate it. Those people need to be well trained; they need to understand what’s going on; and they need to understand that when the system changes, which with climate change we’re going to increasingly see, that we have good people who know [what they are doing].”
Councils collectively operate 529 supplies, which translates to around 4.4 million people.
