Napier residents, and council will conserve water as summer heats up. Photo/File
Napier residents, and council will conserve water as summer heats up. Photo/File
A previously secret update on Napier's water supply discussed behind closed doors to protect Napier City Council staff from harassment, was brought into the open yesterday.
At their final meeting of 2017 the council discussed an update on the city's water supply, the security of water supply head works, and the work done on its water safety improvement plan.
This item was discussed behind closed doors earlier this month, to protect staff from "improper pressure or harassment".
The council faced criticism for keeping the item in a public excluded portion of the meeting due to two separate incidents in the days before.
Napier faced a severe water shortage with the highest level of water restrictions suddenly enforced, and e. coli was found for the third time.
Yesterday council manager asset strategy Chris Dolley told the council part of their work had been bringing the city's water supply headworks up to standard under the New Zealand Drinking Water Standard (NZDWS).
The reservoirs were nearly empty just a few weeks ago. Photo/File
Staff had also been working to fix three additional areas of risk found - including that three bores were unable to provide evidence they were confined, there were a number of bores close to wastewater infrastructure, and maintaining a positive artesian head.
"These are not new issues that have been created in the last six months, these are legacy issues. Essentially our water head works never met the requirements of the [NZDWS]."
The scrutiny placed on water supplies following the Havelock North contamination meant they had raised the bar.
Mr Dolley said they were continuing to work to sort these issues out, and it would take until June next year to complete.
Since October there had been concern about having enough water over summer, but he said staff were now sure they could maintain a chlorinated supply through the summer months, with 50,000m3 available.
Peak day demand in 2016 was around 43,000m3.
When asked, Mr Dolley said he did not think the city would run out of water this summer, but that residents still needed to work to conserve water, and be mindful that it was a "precious resource".
Of the 28 items in the improvement plan - which will address water supply risks - 11 were completed, eight on track, nine behind schedule.
This was due to the time taken to recruit the councils three waters team, and a "significant" number of transgressions and unforeseen amount of work required to bring bore head works up to standard.
With chlorination, and changes in which pumps were operating there had been some "dirty water" issues – notably brown water found in Tamatea shortly after the water shortage was announced.
Mr Dolley said they were working to find the best solution to this.
Level two restrictions are in place in Napier. These mean residents should take care with sprinklers and hoses, using them between 6am and 8am, and 7pm and 9pm only, as follows: even numbered houses on even days of the month, and odd numbered houses on odd days of the month.
