Clean water in pipeline for Seddon

Seddon residents have less than a year left of boiling tap water as the town’s new water treatment plant should be ready by Christmas.

Work on the plant, above the Seddon War Memorial, started last month and the bulk of the earthworks had been completed.

Marlborough District Council project engineer Mark Power said the water would go through multiple stages of filtration, bringing an end to decades of unclean drinking water for the town.

‘‘It will go through a course filter and then it will go through an ultra fine membrane filter. Then it will get chlorine treatment and pushed back out into town,’’ Power

"It's very exciting, it's something we're really looking forward to" Liz Cleaver

said.

However, Seddon’s water would not be the same as Blenheim’s due to the source of the water, the Black Birch stream.

‘‘It will be a bit different to Blenheim water as Blenheim is not filtered and it’s only treated with UV.

‘‘Whereas here in Seddon, it comes from a stream supply which has silt and algae. If it’s just been through UV, the particles will still be in the water,’’ Power said.

The new treatment plant would also have room for two reservoirs.

‘‘The reservoir will hold the potable [drinking] water and we’ve left space to build another one in the future.

‘‘So if we have to take out one reservoir for cleaning or maintenance we can have another one. Or as the population grows we will have another one,’’ Power said.

The pipes connecting the town supply to the treatment plant were made of polyethylene, which was more resistant to seismic movements, he said.

The plant would cost $3.5 million and the Ministry of Health was subsidising $1m.

Construction of the plant was expected to finish in September, but from there it would go through testing until December to ensure it was functioning properly, Power said.

The progress being made on the water treatment plant had local residents excited, he said.

Awatere Seddon Water Group member Liz Cleaver said she was delighted with the treatment plant.

‘‘It’s very exciting, it’s something we’re really looking forward to,’’ she said.

Turbid water and flooding had caused issues with the town’s water supply since the 1940s. The town’s water supply had to be boiled for safety reasons, with cases of E Coli in 2005 and 2006.