This apology was made last week, well before Mr Dixon's piece was published.
I doubt that he's really read the report.
To sustain his position that the regional council is to blame for the calamity he has to argue that the poison arrived because of some sort of mismanagement of the aquifer.
This is unsupported by the evidence placed before the inquiry and amounts to plain nonsense.
The pollution of the aquifer, if it occurred at all, was down to perforations (or holes) in the bore head and the wells in Brookvale Rd.
These perforations should have been noticed and fixed if the responsible body, the Hastings District Council, had normal maintenance programmes.
However, the inquiry report showed that the district council didn't bother to fulfil such a basic requirement.
To quote again from the inquiry report: "The District Council at no time prior to the 2016 outbreak had a written maintenance and inspection programme for the three Brookvale Rd bores."
Note the words "district council".
A more rational argument than that advanced by Mr Dixon is that this slipshod management of the bores by the district council was responsible for poisoning the drinking water and perhaps the aquifer.
Since I wrote about this matter last week, further evidence of council incompetence emerged when Ian Inkston, a public-health official, revealed that he'd emailed both councils 15 years ago, warning of potential contamination of Brookvale Bore number 2.
This was apparently ignored.
Put this (1) ignored warning together with (2) the absence of action after previous pollution episodes, (3) the lack of a maintenance schedule for the well-heads and (4) the nonexistence of a council emergency response strategy and it adds up to thoroughly incompetent governance by the Hastings District Mayor and the councillors.
But wait, there's more!
My column last week also resulted in a reader sending me the following:
"Council documents show that in June 2009 Hastings District Council made a significant decision.
"Asset Management Capital Project No 202091, titled 'New Source at Whakatu & Rising Main to Havelock North' was included in the 10-year plan adopted by council in June 2009, and is included in the Contribution Policy adopted in December 2009, and remains in the 2015/2016 Contributions policy.
"The Capital Report of 4th December 2009 shows that a $4.9 million project was approved for a new well field to replace Brookvale and the project was scheduled to be completed early in 2015.
"It was to be 50 per cent funded from Development Contributions [charged against new development in Havelock North]."
So it looks as though there was a plan to get rid of the offending wells altogether, which was shelved.
Voters should ask Mr Yule to confirm that there was indeed such a plan and to explain to Havelock North people why it was never executed and where the money allocated for the new wells went.
A reader also tells me that the Hastings District Council, in an explicit admission of guilt, is now beginning the preparation of an emergency-response plan in response to the inquiry's finding that: "There were, however, significant gaps in readiness, such as the District Council's lack of an Emergency Response Plan, draft boil water notices, and up-to-date contact lists for vulnerable individuals, schools, and childcare centres".
It is quite possible that this absence of an emergency-response plan contributed to the fatalities.
I had the good fortune to serve as a director of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority (ARTA) and Auckland Transport (AT) with the late Mark Ford as chairman.
Hugely experienced, Mr Ford had workshops which emphasised that good governance meant the identification and management of risk.
This is exactly where Lawrence Yule has been found wanting.
* Mike Williams grew up in Hawke's Bay. He is CEO of the NZ Howard League and a former Labour Party president. All opinions are his and not those of Hawke's Bay Today.
