Tapping into safer water
Councils adding chlorine instead of addressing real issues around safe supply
It’s two years since the gastro crisis hit Havelock North but controversy still remains. That’s because of the mistaken belief that we need to chlorinate all water supplies to prevent “another Havelock North” gastro outbreak.
Chlorine would not have saved 5500 people from being poisoned in Havelock North in 2016. Hastings District Council failed to monitor water quality immediately after the flooding and power outage on August 6, 2016. For a whole week, people drank a dose of sheep dung every time they used the kitchen tap or brushed their teeth. Then, on August 12, the council was alerted to the gastro outbreak in Havelock North, so they threw chlorine into the mix.
But no amount of chlorine could cope with dung from 1600 sheep in the paddock next to the bores. Chlorine just led to a false sense of security: Four people died and 5500 were left seriously ill after drinking the contaminated water for several weeks. When Hastings District Council finally shut down the contaminated bores and connected Havelock North to the safe artesian water from Hastings – problem solved, no chlorine needed!
Then the council chlorinated Hastings’ water supply – just to be “safe”.
In March 2017, HDC switched Havelock North back to the Brookvale bore field. Bores 1 and 2, which were heavily contaminated in August
2016, were abandoned, but the water inquiry directed HDC to recommission Brookvale
Bore 3 as an interim measure, until a safe source of water could be found for Havelock North. Maximum chlorine treatment was ordered because Bore 3 had been contaminated and shut down in 2015 – the source of that contamination was never identified.
Twenty years ago a gastro outbreak hit Havelock North and 80 people became ill. The inquiry into the 1998 contamination recommended the council raise the bore heads above ground – but HDC failed to comply. In 2009, HDC approved a $4.5 million project for a new bore in the secure aquifer at Whakatu with a rising main to Havelock North. Unfortunately, under the leadership of Mayor Lawrence Yule and CEO Ross McLeod, the council abandoned the project in 2011 because it was “not a good investment”.
Havelock North will soon be connected to Hastings’ water supply and Brookvale 3 will be abandoned. In the meantime we’ve all been tarred with the same brush. The whole of Hastings district has been chlorinated, including the brand new Whakatu community bore. The whole of Napier was chlorinated last year after two reservoirs had E.coli readings which turned out to be “on the edge of detection” according to NCC – no proof of any contamination.
Water supplies in Napier and Hastings are different from Havelock North’s current supply. The source water for Hastings District and Napier is from the secure, protective layers of the confined aquifer. Havelock North’s bores were non-artesian, next to a paddock of 1600 sheep, below ground-level and not in the protective, confining layer of the Heretaunga aquifer. But both NCC and HDC claim that, even if our source water is safe, they need to add chlorine to ensure it stays “safe” all the way to the kitchen tap.
Chlorine won’t protect us from giardia and cryptosporidium – you have to boil water in a pot for four minutes to make it genuinely safe to drink. If there’s a problem in the distribution network just fix the problem, don’t throw chemicals at it and tell us “job done”.
No one was getting sick drinking the tap water in Napier and Hastings until they added chlorine. Many people are experiencing stomach problems and skin conditions they’ve never had before.
The Dutch stopped using chlorine because of the health risks. It is disturbing to see the claim that “there is no credible evidence that chlorination poses any risk to consumers” [para 146 of the Water Inquiry Report Stage Two].
There is no law requiring mandatory chlorination – merely a “recommendation” from the Havelock North inquiry based on the misguided belief that Havelock North was a “routine NZ water supply”. In fact the hearings revealed the serious failings of HDC to manage the municipal supply for Havelock North. It was definitely not a “routine NZ water supply” in August 2016.
The Dutch manage to provide safe drinking water without using chlorine, not even as a residual in the network. By way of comparison, water chlorination is mandatory in the UK, where the rate of waterborne disease is almost five times higher than in the Netherlands. Other EU countries are now following the Dutch example – 50 per cent of Germany’s water supplies are chlorine-free. Prevention, rather than the chlorine “cure”, is the focus of the Dutch water management system.
Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta recently visited the UK. She should have visited the Netherlands instead. Health Minister David Clark is “seriously considering” the possibility of exempting Christchurch if the Government decides to follow the UK model. Like Christchurch, Napier and Hastings also draw from pristine confined aquifers – we should also claim exemption from mandatory chlorination.
It's time we had a referendum. Guardians of the Aquifer has organised a petition for a referendum on mandatory chlorination to coincide with the 2019 local body elections.
No one was getting sick drinking the tap water in Napier and Hastings until they added chlorine. Many people are experiencing stomach problems and skin conditions they’ve never had before.
are spokespeople for Guardians of the Aquifer [a lobby group advocating for healthy, safe drinking water].