Huntly water pipe flushing complete but brown tap complaints persist

The brown water in Huntly has been a reoccurring issue since 2015. Photos / Aimee Sayers, Jennifer Carr, Nick Greene

After a decade of regular brown tap water and a three-year wait for a specialised unit, a water-pipe-flushing programme in Huntly has finished.

Waikato District Council said residents should now see a “significant improvement” since the flushing with the Neutral Output Discharge Elimination System [no-des unit].

But for some Huntly locals, the brown water issue persists.

The council said the discolouration was caused by iron and manganese deposits that the unit was brought in to clear.

More than 34km of Huntly’s water pipes were flushed between late July and August this year.

The council has assured residents the water is safe to drink.

However, residents continue to be worried about bathing in it, let alone drinking it.

The council has received 13 complaints since flushing took place.

Among the concerned residents is Rajnil Prasad, who has lived in Huntly with his family for 17 years.

Like other Huntly residents, his tap water regularly ran brown for a couple of years.

Prasad had been buying six big 15-litre bottles of water every fortnight.

He was hopeful the flushing would get rid of the issue, but for him the council’s flushing programme with the no-des unit had not resolved anything.

“Sometimes [the water’s] clean and then sometimes it’s just really brown.”

The brown water poured through the tap of Rajnil Prasad's Huntly home. Photo / Rajnil Prasad

The family boiled water for showers, which he said was also wasting gas.

“We’re paying so much for rates, and this is what we get ... it’s quite disappointing actually,” he said.

Fellow Huntly resident Nikita Lal had noticed brown water in her shower since moving to Huntly eight years ago.

Initially, she paid for plumbing work, only to discover it was “an ongoing problem”.

Since the council’s flushing programme concluded, Lal was still seeing brown water “on occasion, but not as frequently as before”.

The no-des unit (Neutral Output Discharge Elimination System).

She also thought the water quality was “better than before” the flushing, but said it had been a “long process” for the council to fix the issue.

Lal, too, continued to buy water from the supermarket.

“After paying for water rates, we expected that we would receive the normal water every other person receives.”

A history of complaints

Since 2015, the council has recorded more than 600 official complaints about Huntly’s water – including that it regularly runs brown, has a metallic taste and discolours washing.

The council said the recent flushing should mean residents saw a “significant improvement” in Huntly’s water quality.

However, since flushing took place with the no-des unit, they had received 13 complaints.

Five complaints in September were “directly associated” with maintenance work on the network at that point.

Waikato District Council waters manager Keith Martin told the Herald the unit was “not a complete answer” to fixing the discolouration issue.

“[The unit] simply addresses iron manganese deposits that are in the pipe network, but it does not bring the pipes back to new,” Martin said.

The council said Huntly’s water came from the Waikato River below the Mangawara Stream in Taupiri, which had “high levels” of manganese.

The dissolved minerals built up in the pipes.

“The water treatment plant does its best to remove most of it, but it doesn’t remove all of it, so it does present itself occasionally in the network,” Martin said.

“This can cause the water to look brown. Even though it’s safe to drink, we know the colour of the water is offputting for people.”

Martin said the flushing, which took place over three weeks, had been a “useful exercise”.

He said removing the iron and manganese deposits helped improve network performance.

“Based on the results of the flushing and the amount of sediment captured in the filters, we should see major improvements in water quality,” he said.

In addition to flushing, the council was upgrading water lines and flushing pipes more regularly.

In January, the council planned to book the no-des unit again for a more “targeted approach”.

Anyone having brown water issues can contact the council or report it on the Antenno app.

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.