Chlorine-free water: Why Napier City Council can't install water filters for all

A chlorine-free water tap at Pettigrew Green Arena in Napier. Photo / File

A plan to provide water filters for all Napier homes has been ruled out as Napier City Council plots a possible path to chlorine-free water over the next two decades.

A Pattle Delamore Partners report reviewing the options for the provision of safe drinking water to Napier will be presented to Napier City Council's Sustainable Napier Committee meeting on Thursday.

One of the shortlisted options discussed in the review was allowing properties to have a point-of-use device fitted to remove chlorine and ensure microbial water quality is maintained.

The report indicated the set-up costs for such a system would be $80.5 million - that's $3,500 for each of the 23,000 properties in Napier, with ongoing annual costs associated with changing the filters of $12 million.

The report concluded that the option was not practical because the legal responsibility for the water quality of the point-of-use system was not clear under the Ministry of Health's Drinking-water Standards for New Zealand.

Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise said legally it was not clear who would be responsible for ongoing maintenance.

Napier Mayor Kirsten Wise said providing individual properties with water filters was not an option for a variety of reasons. Photo / File

"If we're providing the filters, it does raise an issue: if they're not maintained properly, where would any liability lie?" she said.

"Ultimately, it doesn't provide a robust, long-term solution from an infrastructure perspective."

Aqua Filtration and Treatment Hawke's Bay managing director Brian Cawood said demand for their water filters in Napier has persisted following an initial spike when it was announced the water chlorination was going to be permanent.

He said their biggest customers now were young families with children:

The report spelled out three options for the council going forward - spending $178 million over 20 years, as is already planned, spending $221 million on an improved version of that status quo, or spending $284 million to get to a place where going chlorine-free is possible.

Wise said those numbers are only indicative at this stage as there hasn't been any detailed analysis into costing yet.

"A lot of that cost has to be incurred anyway, just to upgrade and modernise and meet the new regulations around our water supply, without it even being part of the chlorine-free proposition," she said.

Cawood said the council "are damned if they do and damned if they don't," and the public need to understand that fighting the council won't solve the problem.

Aqua Filtration and Treatment Hawke's Bay managing director Brian Cawood is still selling plenty of water filters to Napier residents concerned about chlorine. Photo / Paul Taylor

"If they accept that the council doesn't really have an option, then it's easier to find a solution," he said.

"The infrastructure was never put in place for what we have got today."

Cawood said he thought the cost of installing individual filters into everybody's house in Napier would be around $25 to $30 million.

"But by doing that you're admitting that your water is not up to standard, so it becomes a political decision," he said.

"Economically, it's silly not to do it."