"It seems Havelock North has been caught in a perfect 'storm'. Water infrastructure that is at the end of its serviceable life (common in many New Zealand towns and cities); a dramatic weather event that has resulted in surface flooding directly into the bore - contaminating the water in the well around the pump (not the aquifer); and an extended power outage meaning the pump - meant to remove dirty flood water around the bore - failed."
Mayor Lawrence Yule said Mr Ritchie was using the calamity of the water contamination to defend and promote intensive agriculture.
He said it was concerning that Mr Ritchie claims to have seen investigation evidence that the council was not aware of as a party to the joint investigation being carried out by council, the Hawke's Bay District Health Board and the Hawke's Bay Regional Council.
Council chief executive Ross McLeod said Mr Ritchie's comments did not align with the results of testing on the bores to date.
"Testing to date shows that while some of the gland seals in the bores are not in the condition expected given independent inspection of the bores earlier in the year, the back-up safety systems [sump pumps and flood alarms] are all working as designed when put under a worst-case flood event," Mr McLeod said.
"In particular, the flood alarms functioned on battery power even when the power is off.
"This suggests that if water had got near the seals in the August storm event, the flood alarms would have gone off.
"Our analysis so far indicates no alarms were activated during that storm event."
Mr McLeod said it was too early in the investigation to be drawing conclusions.
There are still two to three months of testing to do on the bores, the aquifer and the surrounding catchment.
"However, the testing completed to date shows no clear evidence that water entered the bores through the bore heads.
"There is also no evidence as yet of any cracks in the bore casings despite Mr Ritchie's claims," Mr McLeod said.