Doyle and Keys: A new source of safe drinking water for Havelock North

Pauline Doyle

Ten months down the track and recently the Water Inquiry was still debating how to make water from Brookvale 3 safe for drinking in Havelock North.

Bores 1 and 2 are to be abandoned because of their connection to the Mangateretere ''sheep pond''. But at the most recent hearing questions were asked about continuing to utilise the Brookvale aquifer and whether there was a possibility of the sheep pond connecting with Bore 3.

The regional council revealed that it would be risky to continue using Bore 3 because of the likely draw-down effects from pumping for a municipal supply in a semi-confined aquifer.

So we are back to square one - drill new bores for Havelock North in the confined aquifer.
On June 7 Guardians of the Aquifer recommended that Hastings District Council (HDC) revisit Project 202091. This was a $4.9 million project to move from the insecure Brookvale bore field to a new source in Whakatu.

The project was approved by the council in 2009 but, for some strange reason, the council decided to abandon it in 2012. A clue can be found in this statement by Mayor Yule in 2013: "When I look at the implications for spending millions of dollars on upgrading bores, I am struggling to understand why we have to do this." (Hastings challenges water upgrade scheme, HB Today, February 20 2013.)

At a meeting with council's water managers on May 19 we were told Project 202091 "morphed into a more efficient use of resources, building on what we've already got".  Recently the CEO was still trying to defend the council's decision to abandon the project (Axed bore project comes to light, HB Today, June 17 2017). 

Unfortunately, no questions were asked about this $4.9m project during Stage 1 of the hearing because Hastings District Council failed to disclose the existence of Project 202091 to the inquiry panel.

If this project had been revealed at the outset, rest assured the inquiry panel would have strongly recommended that some of the $12m recently approved by HDC for water upgrades be invested in a secure new source for Havelock North and drilling could have begun. Instead the council has stalled.

In 1998 Havelock North experienced a campylobacter outbreak which made 80 people ill. Bore 2 was the likely cause of that contamination according to the investigator, Stu Clark.
At the recent inquiry it was claimed there had been a "loss of institutional knowledge" of the 1998 event: according to the mayor "no one who is here today was in council then".

But Project 202091 was in fact a direct response to what was learned from Mr Clark's investigations in 1998. By 2008 staff within the council realised they finally had to move from Brookvale. Was it more a case of "institutional forgetting" by some in management?

The knowledge was there in the council but it is apparent that not only was it "overlooked", it was also strenuously denied in statements to the inquiry and in the answers to questions subsequently asked by Guardians of the Aquifer.

HDC was given 10 years to move away from Brookvale but it seems that the council never had any intention of complying with the conditions of the 2008 consent.

As recently as 2015 the council drilled an exploratory well in the Brookvale aquifer. It never went ahead because the water was too "hard". And now cynics would suggest that the $800,000 treatment plant for Bore 3 (contaminated in October 2015) means the council has a lot invested in staying on at Brookvale after their current consent expires on May 18 2018. 

The council's intentions are evident in the Action Plan of the Water Safety Joint Working Group meeting on 16 February 2017, which states "Both BV2 & 3 would need to be reconsented before May 2018.  Therefore it will be important that HDC begin discussions ASAP with HBRC to ensure a robust reconsenting process." 

The proposal to continue to take drinking water from an insecure non-artesian groundwater source at Brookvale Rd is highly risky.  Unfortunately it appears that the highly risky proposal of Hastings District Council has been given the stamp of approval by all members of the Joint Working Group.

Not only that: Hastings District Council's plans seem to be driving the direction of the Joint Working Group and we could end up with mandatory chlorination across the whole of Hawke's Bay as a result.

We have serious doubts that Hastings District Council is qualified to be leading the region on the issue of safe drinking water.

As part of our submission to the inquiry panel, we have recommended that the current Joint Working Group be replaced by a completely new regional body to provide governance of our drinking water supplies on the Heretaunga Plains.  It should be chaired by an independent, professional water engineer, not a retired politician as at present.  We need a chairperson who understands the difference between confined and unconfined aquifers and the significance of loss of artesian pressure. 

It is time to face facts. "Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced."  James Baldwin, writer and Civil Rights activist.

Pauline Doyle & Ken Keys are spokespersons for Guardians of the Aquifer.
Views expressed here are the writers' opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz