Clean water flows through to Waimarama

Waimarama School students MJ (left) and Shiloh with bottles of water that have been supplied following a boil water notice being issued for the seaside community. Photo/Duncan Brown

A boil water notice remains in place for Waimarama's town water supply today with the Hastings District Council continuing to deliver more water to the seaside community.

At the weekend, water was dropped off at Waimarama Marae after the boil water notice was issued on Saturday, and more had been delivered to Waimarama School, the Waimarama Store, the Surf Club, the campground and the local cafe.

At Waimarama School, which has a roll of 24, principal's assistant Joy Angus said 90 boxes of water had been dropped off on Sunday, and all the drinking fountains had been covered to remind the children not to use them.

The staff and students were also using hand sanitiser that had been provided by the charitable trust KidsCan.

"We also got some drink bottles for the kids which are named - the council has suggested we use the boxed water for the rest of the week."

Hastings District Council local incident controller Alison Banks said the council had tried to cover the facilities that had extra people coming in or were using water for public food preparation.

"We have a team that's working 24/7 keeping in touch with key contacts and have advised them to boil the water or use the clean water being brought in until the boil water notice is lifted - we're keeping tight communication with them."

One of the contacts was Neighbourhood Watch member and local Civil Defence co-ordinator Richard Gaddum who had lived in Waimarama for about 20 years and said people were fairly accepting of the situation.

"We are a resilient lot and accept that these things happen - that's what little communities do."

He said that on Saturday in his Civil Defence role he went out in the ute with the loudspeaker a couple of times to alert residents to the situation.

"The council has been very good - the E.coli levels were very low but they got onto it quickly - from past experience that was the right thing to do."

As of yesterday, although further water testing had shown "clear" preliminary results on Sunday, the boil water notice remained in place while the council determined what had led to the positive test on Saturday.

Chlorine was flushed through the system on Saturday night, after a "1" and a "2" result was logged. A result of "10" was considered high.

A large sign informing of the boil water notice had been erected on the road into Waimarama, and public drinking taps had been turned off and taps in public toilets signposted as "For hand washing only. Please do not drink."