Kāeo residents have had to boil all tap water for more than two minutes before consuming it - for the past ten years. Photo: 123RF
A town that has been under a temporary boil water notice for ten years, with brown water coming out of their taps, has New Zealand's water regulator wading in.
In July 2015, a public health notice was issued for Kāeo's water supply in the Far North, telling customers connected to the privately operated town supply to boil all drinking water for at least two minutes.
The notice said the town supply was "temporarily unsafe" and the operator was working with authorities to lift the notice as soon as possible.
Almost a decade on the boil water notice is still in place.
Bay of Islands - Whangaroa Community Board member Bruce Mills told Checkpoint that the situation was "disgusting". It was affecting residents and costing businesses: "It's having an affect right through town. You can imagine the pressures that are on the whole township."
"It's absolutely disgusting the water that comes out of these taps - it's a shocking colour: it's brown. It's absolutely shocking. Why? - I'd like to know that myself."
Mills said Kāeo residents he had spoken with put the need for "clean, green drinking water" at the top of their priorities: "That's been the priority - we've all been aware of it."
He called on Wai Care, the water supplier, to step away from the contract so other arrangements could be made.
But Mills said not only was the water coming through the pipes brown, but "the [water processing plant] plant seems to be closing down sometimes and so public toilets are closed - they claim it's not the case, but I was checking up this morning and it's been verified that they've still been closed down. And when public toilets close, people turn up at service stations and expect to use their toilets - and they've gone on tank water because of the quality of the water.
However water supplier Wai Care's Bryce Aldridge - previously named as Bryce Smith - told Checkpoint he had never had any complaints about the water in Kāeo.
Aldridge said he took the water supply project on voluntarily after being asked to. "I'm complying with the boil water notice - there's no law that says I'm not allowed to stay on the boil water notice - where does it say that?"
National water regulator Taumata Arowai told Checkpoint the notice was not supposed to be a long term solution, and it was concerned. It said it would talk with the supplier and the Far North District Council.
It was the suppliers responsibility to provide safe drinking water, and the water should be safe so long as it was boiled - as per the notice, but it said it was concerned the boil water notice had been in place for so long, as they were not intended as a long-term solution.
Wai Care had claimed that if the water was run for long enough it would come clear, Mills said, but he felt that answer was "just disgusting" - and he had not been able to reliably get clear water by running it.
Smith said "Basically, it is a private company, and the [Far North District] Council has been very specific that it is a private company and they can't intervene at this stage - I find that pretty miserable. It can't be economical, because more and more people are looking for alternative methods to get their water.
"If you can, they're putting a tank in, but a lot of the properties in town ... you can't put tanks in there, so they're having to put up with this boiled water... they can't do anything about it ... their toilets are browner than the stuff you're trying to flush away. "
Aldridge said the water quality he supplied was "in line with a lot of other water suppliers," and he had a water safety plan.
He had plans to get six more water tanks, and a UV system, which he said would triple the water supply once completed, and he had obtained a grant for an upgrade to the plant's treatment system, but he said issues with getting the equipment from another company meant that project had not been completed.
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