Westport narrowly escapes water shutdown

Water shutdowns in the parched town of Westport have been narrowly avoided after overnight rain helped push reservoir levels up 120mm since yesterday.

The town's depleted water levels rose from 14 per cent to 15.6 per cent of full capacity, as a result of increased pumping and a small amount of rain.

Westport had just over 7mm of rain yesterday.

"The pumping is working well, people are conserving water and we shouldn't run out of water," Buller Mayor Martin Sawyers said.

It was the town reservoirs' first gain in a fortnight. They now contain just over a day's supply.

But supply remains on low pressure 24 hours a day and consumption remains steady.

Mr Sawyers said today's small improvement should not be over-emphasised.

"We're not out of the woods at all. We need to continue to conserve and we are going to need to keep on pumping until we get some significant rainfall."

Three pumps were delivering about 5000 cubic metres a day, but this was only matching average daily consumption, Mr Sawyers said.

Between 30mm and 50mm of rainfall was required to make a substantial difference.

Mr Sawyers said the community had made a "tremendous effort" in trying to conserve the town's water supply.

New World supermarket owner Kathy Frampton said bottled water was leaving the shelves almost as soon as they were being restocked.

"Water sales are going particularly well. They're just increasing every week as the crisis worsens. We're buying it in by the pallet at the moment just to keep up with it."

Ms Frampton said normally the store would have enough bottled water of all sizes to fill the shelves -- with a few spare cartons in reserve.

"But with this water shortage we're now buying pallets in the bulk water size mainly because that's what is going."

Westport Holiday Park owner Margaret Montgomery said the water shortage had meant they had had to make a few adjustments to the camping ground.

"We've got notes up to ask people to have quick showers and when they book in we say to everybody what everyone else is doing around town and that there is a water shortage and can they please conserve water for us."

Ms Montgomery said they had turned off the washing machines in the park and were asking people to take showers in the early morning or late evenings.

The campers had been "really helpful", she said.

- NZPA