Hastings water ‘safe to drink’

In Havelock North, the water continues to be chlorinated and a boil-water notice remains in place.

Hastings mayor Lawrence Yule has confirmed water tests in Flaxmere and Hastings returned positive for E coli.

However, new test results from the Hastings, Flaxmere and Bridge Pa water supplies came back clear yesterday.

The Hastings District Council said the tests were taken from across the network including from the same areas of the water supply that returned the earlier suspect results.

Council chief executive Ross Mcleod said receiving the clear results was ‘‘expected, but also a huge relief’’.

He added it was believed the earlier suspect results were an anomaly due to irregularities in a small number of samples.

Yesterday’s results were consistent with results for the 327 tests taken over the 12 months ending mid-july, which had all been clear, Mcleod said.

‘‘What today’s results mean is that the Hastings supply, which also provides water to Flaxmere and Bridge Pa, can continue to be considered safe to drink.’’

However, the council would continue to chlorinate the supply in the short term as required by the drinking water standards.

In Havelock North, the water continues to be chlorinated and a boil-water notice remains in place until health authorities are confident the issue is limited to campylobacter, which is killed by chlorine.

Mcleod and Yule both said they were committed to ‘‘transparency’’ and keeping the public in the loop.

Authorities including the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board earlier came under fire from some quarters for how the outbreak was handled.

The outbreak was a good reason to re-evaluate New Zealand’s intensive farming practices, Massey University ecologist and zoologist Mike Joy said.

New Zealand had high rates of gastrointestinal-type infections compared to other OECD countries.

Joy said farming intensification was a likely factor in the outbreak, after an interim report identified cattle, sheep or deer faeces as the likely source of the Havelock North bacteria.

Campylobacteriosis was one of 13 ‘‘notifiable’’ infectious diseases to which doctors must alert a medical officer of health and local authorities. Joy said official notifications represented only a tiny portion of sick people.

He said authorities should do more to ensure drinking water catchment areas were free of roaming livestock which could foul rivers and aquifers.

It could take fewer than 500 campylobacter organisms to make a person sick.

According to the latest figures he had seen, more than 10 times as many people had campylobacter as official notifications suggested.