It was the front-page lead story in Hawke's Bay Today for 11 of the next 12 days, during which it was discovered more than 5000 had fallen ill.
The Government ordered an inquiry, in September announcing a three-person panel headed by retired Court of Appeal Judge Lynton Stevens QC and which sat for the first time in November. It is due to hold the substantive hearing in late-January, and is tasked with reporting to Government by the end of March.
It is inquiring into how the Havelock North water supply system became contaminated, how it was addressed, how local and central government agencies responded to the public health outbreak that occurred as a result of the contamination, and how to reduce the risk of outbreaks of this nature recurring.
The crisis was to become a recurring feature of the local elections campaign in the Hastings District, although the outbreak completely overshadowed the closing of nominations, which was also on August 12.
Man-in-the-middle and Hastings Mayor Lawrence Yule would have two opponents, and there would be mayoral elections in three of the other four territorial local authority areas in the Hawke's Bay Today circulation area, from Wairoa to Tararua.
Two mayors, Central Hawke's Bay's Peter Butler and Tararua's Roly Ellis, would not be seeking re-election, and in Napier Mayor Bill Dalton would be re-elected unopposed.
The water crisis also shoved one of the major weather events aside, the snow of August 6 which caused a major power cut across Hawke's Bay and the East Coast, and closed the major roads.
Dozens of power poles were brought down between Napier and Taupo, and many people were without electricity for several days. Supply company Unison brought in more than 30 generators to supplement other sources of temporary supply.
Water wasn't the only crisis-point, for July and August saw an escalation of housing issues, with evidence of homelessness becoming more and more pronounced.
It was hardly a surprise, for Housing New Zealand, in line with some government social housing policy, had during the past five years shut down hundreds of state houses, and that was just in Napier.
Many more hundreds had been shut down nationwide and, despite a growing population, not many had been replaced.
Meanwhile, rents were rising and house prices were rocketing beyond the range of many who simply just wanted a house to live in, as opposed to having houses to make a living out of.
A meeting in Napier on July 5 focused on the shortage of homes, amid revelations that Housing NZ was placing families in motels as one solution, even if only temporarily.
Napier city councillor Maxine Boag, who later successfully took a running-mate through the Nelson Park Ward election to the council table, said Maraenui had been disrupted by the endless wait for new homes promised for the area.
The housing crisis would continue, although regarded in the halls of power as an Auckland issue, but it was all bizarre.
Not as bizarre though as something called Pokemon Go, which Wikipedia calls a "free to play, location-based, augmented reality game", which was perhaps most enjoyed from the sideline as players walked into trees and other objects while looking at their cellphones.
There was a series of events in early July, including a Saturday afternoon quest in Napier, but while the app had been downloaded 500 million times it seemed by the end of July to be history. Really.
The real game in New Zealand, however, is rugby, and while we'd all watched the All Blacks' record-breaking year start gathering momentum in June, there were some gratifying moments in grassroots footy in July and August in Hawke's Bay.
On July 16, Hastings side Tamatea had their first Premier-grade win in three years, after 60 Premier losses in a row, and a week later Eskview won the Hawke's Bay Division 2 final, in a dramatic reversal after almost going into recess in early 2015.
Among their players was Bradley Benton, who in April had suffered a near-fatal fall bouncing off the side of a boat and into the Napier Inner Harbour during a night out with teams the club was hosting from the Chatham Islands.
He had been saved by the collective responses of fishermen Aidan Carruthers and Chris Sparkes, and surf lifesaver Heidi Warren, who later attained the accolade of rescue of the month, albeit off-duty and also on a night out.
One of the biggest winners of the mid-winter in Hawke's Bay was William Barnes, a teacher in English at Napier's Kura Kaupapa Maori o Te Ara Hou. On July 24, he won the final of Mastermind, a television elite quiz show returning to the screen after 25 years.
A few weeks earlier, we'd all wanted to be winners when Lotto Powerball reached a must-go jackpot of $40 million.
It was a classic example of hold on to your ticket, for with no one having the first division numbers it rolled-down to the second division and was shared by three tickets, two in Waikato and one in Dunedin.