I have been supported by a large number of dedicated health and council professionals who have worked long hours to ensure these key areas are supported. My sincere thanks goes to them all.
Despite the large disruption and misery of the illness, the very best has come out in people.
I sincerely thank individuals, community groups, volunteers, suppliers, supermarkets, chemists, the Havelock North Business Association, councillors and central government politicians who have all done their best to help.
A crisis generally makes people come closer together and the village is no different.
We now know from the incidence of campylobacter in the population that, despite a clear test on Tuesday, the water was likely to have been contaminated on Monday.
This means that people were drinking contaminated water for about five days before health authorities noticed a significant amount of illness and the council received an abnormal indicator test from a sample taken on Thursday.
Without prejudging any investigation, the main contributing factor to the number of people affected was because nobody knew the water was contaminated.
A lot of people have asked me about the testing regime and I have asked the same questions. There is no machine you can dip in the water to detect the bugs. They have to be grown in laboratories.
Under the NZ Drinking Water Standard, the Te Mata and Heretaunga aquifer supplies were deemed as secure because they have confining layers to prevent surface contamination and the water in the aquifers is age tested (often decades) to show it has come from distant, secure sources.
This security status is agreed between Ministry of Health drinking water assessors and councils and this results in a testing regime under the Drinking Water Standards.
The council does not itself test the water, nor determine the frequency of sampling. Every three months the council generates a plan that is put through the Water Industry NZ database and this is given to an accredited laboratory to collect and analyse the water to that agreed plan.
The results and plans are monitored by the Ministry of Health and the DHB to ensure water safety. The council receives the results of these tests and currently pays around $100,000 for this testing. The Ministry of Health produces an annual compliance report.
We know the Tuesday test did not pick up a presence of E.coli which is the indicator organism.
The reason for this is unknown. Had this test picked this up then, the number of people affected would have been dramatically lowered as chlorination would have been introduced as an immediate response two to three days earlier than it was.
Despite the best of intentions by regulators and systems, the bugs have beaten the testing regime. Because the water was unchlorinated there was no second line of defence against them.
We still do not know how campylobacter got into the aquifer or bores.
I welcome the Attorney-General's inquiry which will cover all the issues from a health and local government perspective including drinking water standards and testing. This inquiry will however take months and will be nationally significant.
In the interim, HDC has introduced a daily testing regime of all bores and network and for the next three months the water supply for Hastings and Havelock North will be combined and supplied from the deep Heretaunga aquifer.
It will also be chlorinated for that time as a requirement arising out of the NZ Drinking Water Standards.
- Lawrence Yule is the Mayor of Hastings and is standing for re-election in the October local government elections.
- Views expressed here are the writer's opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz
