Twizel water supply should hold

While upgrades to Twizel’s water supply will not be complete in time for an influx of thousands of visitors, the Mackenzie District Council is confident there will be enough water for everyone during the holiday period.

Every festive season thousands of visitors descend on Twizel – last January, it was estimated about 17,000 visitors were in the town.

According to the council’s 2018-28 Long Term Plan, the Twizel water supply has the greatest demand of all water supplies in the district and work is being done to help cope.

However, acting chief executive Glenn Snelgrove said the work would not be completed until later in January.

The town was forced into water restrictions last summer, when the reservoir dropped as low as 43 per cent.

Councillor Paul Hannagan told a council meeting Tuesday that he was disappointed the work would not be complete by Christmas. He told Stuff Christmas was the town’s peak time.

However, due to recent wet conditions, he was confident the supply would hold.

Snelgrove said there was still three or four days storage in the reservoir.

The work will allow three pumps to feed the town’s reservoir.

‘‘This work will bring three pumps online meaning they can recover far quicker than they ever could,’’ Snelgrove said. ‘‘It will increase the water capacity hugely.’’

Hannagan said supply problems in the past had always come about during the Christmas period.

He said he hoped the upgrades will put issues ‘‘to bed’’ once and for all.

Everything was pointing in the right direction, he said.

‘‘There’s just that nervousness after the last couple [of problems].

‘‘The thing is, out-of-towners come up for Christmas and in the past there’s been dry, crisp conditions. This time around everything is so green. I can sit and watch my lawn grow in the afternoon.’’

Ben Ohau Golf Club and Twizel Area School were also in the process of getting their own water bores, he said.

It was ‘‘ridiculous’’ treated water be used for watering grass, Hannagan said.

The key was better conservation of water. Hannagan said if that happened, everything was ‘‘looking good’’.