Getting back to normal business after New Plymouth water crisis

New Plymouth businesses shut down because of the district’s water crisis last week are beginning to reopen.

Food processing companies, such as Tegal and Van Dyke’s Fine Foods, had to close after a tree smashed a water pipe during excyclone Gita last week and cut supply to parts of the New Plymouth district.

A boil water order remains in place until further notice.

Van Dykes Fine Foods chief executive Natalie Innes said they were expecting a water tanker delivery yesterday and should be back at work today, after buying a pump and water.

‘‘And we’ve purchased a water pump and will directly pump water into the factory from a clean and safe supply.’’

Van Dykes, which make Marcel’s pancakes, shut down as soon as they heard about the water issue, she said. ‘‘We would have lost three or four days of production by the time we get back to a place where we can operate.

‘‘We have a very full production schedule, so it’s putting us a bit behind. We’re trying to reshuffle our workload to try and accommodate our customers and make sure we fulfil all the orders we have,’’ Innes said.

‘‘And obviously there’s the straight cost paying staff and making sure they are looked after.’’

Innes said they decided to buy a pump when they realised the boil water notice would remain in place for another week after the water came back on.

The company had insurance, but hadn’t had a chance to look into that yet, Innes said.

Tegel’s New Plymouth processing plant started production again on Sunday, after what had been ‘‘a largely unprecedented event’’ for the company, a spokeswoman said.

‘‘Our New Plymouth production facility is the largest of its kind in New Zealand, processing approximately 20 per cent of the country’s poultry. It operates 10 shifts per week, running 24 hours from Monday to Friday, and employs approximately 960 people.’’

Tegel required a significant amount of water for its operations and tankers simply could not provide the required amount, she said. ‘‘As the event was taking place we continually monitored progress of the council’s repairs and we managed to maintain parts of the plant’s operation.

‘‘For example we could continue in our distribution centre but all primary processing was halted due to the water requirement.’’

New Plymouth Chamber of Commerce chief executive Arun Chaudhari said some businesses in the district had taken some ‘‘pretty big hits’’.

Most cafes had managed to boil water, he said.

‘‘The ones I spoke to didn’t have any interruption to their business. The notice got to them by late afternoon so by the next day they had steps in place.’’

Businesses would have insurance, but it would depend on each individual company what type of cover it had, he said.