According to the Land, Air, Water Aotearoa (LAWA) website Kaiate Falls exceeded the threshold of 540 E. coli per 100ml twice out of 16 tests conducted since early November.
The water quality primarily hovered between 300/100ml and 550/100ml.
Kaiate Falls has a permanent health warning by Bay of Plenty Regional Council and Toi Te Ora, warning swimmers to be cautious about swimming in it due to high faecal contamination.
LAWA attached a 'caution' warning to Kaiate Falls, based on the previous water quality guidelines where less than 260 parts of E. coli per 100ml was acceptable for recreation.
It's difficult to compare the new national guidelines with the old ones because they use different factors. For example, the 2014 guidelines based water quality grading on wadeability and annual medians of E. coli levels.
The new standards applied only to swimmability and focus on the proportion of time water exceeded the 540 E. coli/100ml standard. A classification of excellent, good, or fair for swimming was determined using a minimum of 100 samples collected on a regular basis.
Bay of Plenty Regional Council Chairman Doug Leeder said the council was yet to assess the full implications of the Government's announcement.
"Although the new MfE maps identify 86 per cent of our waterways as already acceptable for swimming, we've got very high standards for our region, so we'll continue our actions and work to ensure the Bay of Plenty environment is one we're proud to leave to our mokopuna," he said.
Toi Te Ora Public Health Service medical officer Dr Neil de Wet said the service supported all measures to protect and improve water quality.
"Initiatives that focus on water quality and frequent sampling allow the medical officer of health to provide advice relevant to popular local swimming spots."
Green Party water spokeswoman Catherine Delahunty said the Government had "shifted the goalposts" for determining whether a river was swimmable.
Labour Party water spokesman David Parker said the new standards "will not clean up our polluted rivers."
In a statement, Dr Nick Smith said there were three good reasons for the new table being proposed on Human Health for Recreation.
The first was that the focus was on swimmability rather than wadeability. The second was that it connected with the real-time information available on the LAWA website on where people could swim.
"The third advantage is that it is consistent with the international risk levels for swimming accepted by the World Health Organisation, the European Union and the United States."
Another issue brought up by critics was that E. coli was just one possible measure of swimmability - other indicators of unsafe swimming conditions include nitrates and phosphorous.
The new guidelines required councils to take these into account, but what that actually would mean was still unclear.
The standard set a target of making 90 per cent of New Zealand's rivers swimmable by 2040.
For the first time, deadlines have been established for all livestock to be excluded from rivers.
The exclusion of stock, which had to be completed by 2030, would require 56,000km of extra fencing - enough to go around the world 1.5 times.
New policy snapshot
- Raising the level of swimmable waterways to 90 per cent will require cleaning up 10,000km of waterways.
- It will cost Government, farmers and council an estimated $2 billion.
- It will require stock to be kept out of waterways and make regional councils tighten rules on sewage discharge
Most recent E. Coli sampling tests at Kaiate Falls
21/02 - 460 E. coli/100ml
14/02 - 540 E.coli/100ml
08/02 - 430 E. coli/100ml
01/02 - 530 E. coli/100ml
