New standards address rural water problems

People living in smaller rural communities continue to have access to a lower standard of drinking water than the rest of New Zealand.

The Ministry of Health released new drinking water standards yesterday and said that although most New Zealanders had access to safe drinking-water, small rural communities continued to trail behind.

Public Health senior adviser Michael Taylor said some small communities did not have access to drinking water of sufficient quality and others received drinking water that was either inadequately monitored or not monitored at all.

The new standards replace the 2000 requirements and detail how to assess the quality and safety of drinking water.

Dr Taylor said the improved standard of drinking water meant most New Zealanders now had access to safe drinking water because the larger suppliers were almost all entirely satisfactory.

The standards required all water suppliers servicing populations of more than 500 persons to notify consumers twice yearly about the potential health risks posed by minute traces of heavy metals that could be in their drinking water.

About 1.1 million New Zealanders were supplied with drinking water during 2003 that failed to comply with the current standards.

"Many of the causes for this non-compliance centred on levels of E. coli or a failure by suppliers to take proper action, including monitoring, after it was found," Dr Taylor said.

Among the key additions to the standards is a section dealing with water suppliers serving populations of fewer than 500 people, a section covering tankered water suppliers and a section dealing with cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.

The Government has set up a $150 million Drinking Water Assistance Programme to provide technical support and funding for water suppliers.

The new standards will go into effect on December 31 and affect public and private supplies but not bottled water.

- NZPA