The Havelock North Water Inquiry resumes today following an intensive first week of investigation to uncover the cause of the campylobacter outbreak in August last year.
By the end of the week it had been confirmed that the outbreak was caused by sheep faeces entering Brookvale Bore 1 via the Mangateretere surface pond about 90m away, washed in by heavy rain.
The Mangateretere Stream was a focus of the inquiry from day 1 when Hastings District Council water services manager Brett Chapman faced a day and a half of questioning about bore security and maintenance, a lack of record keeping and information sharing between the Hawkes' Bay Regional Council and Hastings District Council and delays in reporting.
Questions remained over whether the contaminated water got in via a defect in the casing of bore 1, and whether that indicated an overall issue with bore design and asset management in municipal water supplies - an issue that would be looked at in the second stage of the inquiry.
There was some talk of conducting further pressure testing on the bore casing to determine whether the water came in through a defect, although inquiry panel chair Lyn Stevens questioned whether that was a necessary cost considering bore 1 was set to be decommissioned when its 10-year consent expired in 2018.