Warning of Putaruru E coli arrives ‘too late’
It’s possible Puta¯ruru residents have been drinking E coli contaminated water for days.
And they’re not happy about it. On Friday, South Waikato District Council received results for a water sample, showing a count of 7 E coli per 100ml of water.
The sample was taken the day before from the Pinedale No 1 reservoir, which is supplied from Blue Springs.
Blue Springs supplies a number of bottling companies including Coca-Cola. While the firms hadn’t detected E coli at the springs, leading officials to believe the contamination was at the reservoir, council was switching to chlorinated water to flush the system.
‘‘We alerted the Ministry of Health straight away and decided to put out a boil water notice,’’ South Waikato District Council assets group manager Ted Anderson said.
‘‘Within 30 minutes of finding out, we got the message out to the community,’’ Anderson said.
Council distributed the message on its website, Facebook page and via a push notification sent to people’s smartphones.
The medical centre, rest homes and other key community groups were also informed on Friday and council began distributing pamphlets to properties, Anderson said. But, not every property got a pamphlet.
Resident Michelle Hill didn’t receive a pamphlet until 3.30pm on Monday and although she found out about the contaminated water through social media on Friday, she was concerned for residents who weren’t as tech savvy.
‘‘The contamination isn’t the issue, the lack of communication from our local council is the issue,’’ Hill said.
It wasn’t until Monday that council realised some pamphlets had been returned to the office. An additional pamphlet drop was carried out on Monday.
‘‘We recognise we didn’t get to everyone. We had a focus on social media and in hindsight we’ve had a look and recognise the importance of the mail drop,’’ Anderson said.
‘‘If we had of known, we would have done another pamphlet drop on Saturday.’’
Posters and noticeboard messages also went up around the town on Monday.
Arrangements were also made for a person to go through the town with a megaphone yesterday.
‘‘In hindsight, the effort we put into delivering messages was not sufficient,’’ Anderson said.
Council has told residents to get rid of any ice cubes made after Monday, which Anderson believed has caused some confusion.
‘‘People think we’ve known since last Monday, but we take samples every four days.
‘‘The previous test was taken on Monday, April 16 and the water was all clear. The sample with E coli was taken on Thursday and it takes 24 hours to process, so we were advised on Friday.’’
Coca-Cola, Aquasplash and New Zealand Quality Waters all source water from Blue Springs.
Anderson said the companies had no impact on the release of information.
‘‘We’re not hiding anything, as soon as we were made aware we did what we needed to do.
‘‘I realise there’s an impact on some businesses, but public health is what I need to look after and I make decisions based on what’s best for the community.’’
Coca-Cola, Aquasplash and New Zealand Quality Waters were all made aware of the contamination, Anderson said.
‘‘They do their own monitoring and haven’t picked anything up.
‘‘We’ve been pushing through chlorinated water to deal with the problem. The bottled companies are aware and won’t be able to take water for a time while we work this out.’’
Council believes the contamination has been caused by an animal, which has got into the reservoir, Anderson said. The reservoir has been taken offline, sterilised and cleaned, he said.
‘‘There is a risk of something like this happening again and council will be reviewing its water safety plans.’’
Council is already proposing in its Long Term Plan to chlorinate water from Blue Springs from the beginning of the next financial year, Anderson said.