Foxton’s brown drinking water runs clear

Foxton residents have put up with brown drinking water for years. Now the council has cleared it up, but not for beach dwellers.

The Horowhenua District Council announced on Monday that Foxton’s water clarity problems had been ‘‘fixed for good’’.

Described as brown and smelly, Foxton and Foxton Beach residents used to be hesitant about drinking the water, despite the council saying it was safe to drink. But the Foxton water supply treatment process is being improved, the council says.

Council water and waste services manager Paul Gaydon said work was still under way to fix the supply for Foxton Beach residents.

That would likely cost about $500,000, Gaydon said.

There was no set date for when beach residents could expect clean, clear water.

For Foxton town resident Deyna Halidone, no longer footing the bill for bottled water was good news.

In November, Halidone told the Manawatu Standard she had only drunk the tap water a couple of times ‘‘out of desperation’’ and she would never give it to her children. But for the past few weeks she has had clean, odourless water. Halidone used to spend about $20 a week on water bottles.

Gaydon said the bore water sourced for the Foxton town supply had a high organic and ammonia content, which made it challenging to treat.

Manganese, a naturallyoccurring groundwater mineral, also built up in water pipes and had been dissolving and discolouring the water, he said. ‘‘While the water was always completely safe to drink, it had an unappealing appearance.’’

Instead of ‘‘just adding more chemicals’’, improvements included enhancing the removal of organics in the water clarifier and removing the manganese. A lower dose of chlorination was also made to disinfect the water before it entered the reservoir, Gaydon said.

The solution the council opted for had a one-off cost of $113,000 and $45,000 would be saved yearly from reducing the flushing of water mains from monthly to every two months.

Since the the council adjusted the treatment process, it had surveyed four of the ‘‘biggest complainants’’ and all reported ‘‘a 100 per cent improvement’’, Gaydon said.