Town’s water cut blamed on mice

MICE are being blamed for cutting the Twizel treated water supply for about eight hours on Sunday.

Mackenzie District Mayor Graham Smith said he would call for an inquiry into how and why the town’s water treatment plant shut down and why communication between council officials and contractors Whitestone Contracting Ltd was poor.

The computer which managed the plant shut down about 2.30am on Sunday, Mr Smith said.

He found out about it at 8am when a Twizel resident called him.

A Whitestone Contracting Ltd spokeswoman would not comment to the Otago Daily Times about the matter, stating a contract with the council prevented her from doing so.

Council utilities manager Geoff Horler said at the time of the breakdown, Whitestone staff were running the plant.

‘‘The component that was damaged by rodents has been replaced,’’ he said.

‘‘It was the power supply to the brains of the whole operation. It shorted out.’’

Bait had been placed to control the mice problem.

‘‘It’s not something we anticipated happening.’’

He did not have the costs of the repair work but did not expect it to be ‘‘too bad’’.

Mr Horler acknowledged communication practices would be revisited.

‘‘There were some things to be learned there.’’

When people are working in a high stress situation the last thing they wanted to do was to take phone calls every five minutes to give a progress update, he said, but the informationsharing process would be looked at.

‘‘It’s a fairly new plant.

‘‘When it went right down there was some learning on the spot. Obviously, we know these things now, so we can be better prepared next time.’’

shannon.gillies@odt.co.nz