Paihia in danger of running dry
Paihia’s ageing treatment plant is struggling to provide Northland’s busiest tourist town with sufficient drinking water thanks to floods, silt, varying raw water quality and increasing demand.
Water for Paihia, Waitangi and Haruru comes from the Waitangi River, upstream from Haruru Falls.
A report to Far North District Council’s Infrastructure Committee said the treatment plant faced problems which could be solved, but the plant was nearing the end of its useful life.
With no capacity for raw water storage, the plant had to process whatever was in the river at the time. During storms, and in 2011 when a resident illegally diverted the river, high levels of silt could drastically reduce its output, or force it to shut down. Upstream pollution would also force its closure.
The confined site would make expansion or improvement, such as adding raw water storage, problematic.
The report said the council regularly fielded complaints about water taste and odour. Problems over summer 2017-18 had been due to geosmin, an organic compound created by river microbes, which can cause a strong earthy taste at levels as low as 10 parts per trillion. Levels had reached 59 parts per trillion. The plant’s location also made it vulnerable to flooding. Two floods in 2007 entering the building causing electrical damage.
Demand for water in midsummer now exceeded the plant’s capacity, but there was also a high level of water unaccounted for.
The council has been granted $353,000 from the government’s Tourism Infrastructure Fund for sewerage and water treatment feasibility studies for O¯ pua, Paihia and Waitangi, while $6.8 million was provided in the 2018-28 long-term plan for a new water treatment plant. The report said the actual cost was likely to be higher, however. specialising in performance and efficiency improvement, shared services, executive recruitment, coaching and mentoring.
In 2010 he was awarded the MBE for services to local government.
Far North District Council CEO Shaun Clarke says he was delighted to welcome Mr Taylor.
“Will brings with him extensive experience gained across many facets of local government. I am confident he will quickly make a positive contribution to the Far North, and I welcome both him and his family to our corner of the world,” he said.
Mr Taylor, who succeeds Samantha Edmonds, who returned to Australia late last year to take up a role within the health sector, will be joined by his wife and son within the next few months.