Opinion: If Christchurch can fight chlorination, why can't we?

Christchurch City councillors are determined to fight any attempts by central Government to impose mandatory chlorination of their pristine water supply. Photo / File

Chlorine kills all the bugs in the human gut – not just bad bugs but also the good bugs which are vital for a healthy intestine.

Many people are also finding that chlorine makes skin conditions such as eczema far more painful. For health reasons chlorine treatment of our water supply should be removed, and only used as a temporary measure in emergencies.

So why is the Napier City Council insisting that our water be permanently chlorinated?

Back in December Chris Dolley, Napier's asset strategy manager, publicly stated that "Havelock North was a routine New Zealand water supply." Wrong.

Havelock North's water supply in Brookvale Rd is drawn from a non-artesian aquifer – that's why they need expensive UV treatment and chlorination in Havelock North. But we don't. Napier's water is from the confined aquifer with strong artesian pressure.

Why would Napier ratepayers agree to a rates increase if it means we're stuck with chlorine and all its side-effects, forever?

The cleanup of Napier's underground pipeline and all the council bores will be completed by the end of June. In three months' time we should be back to normal: 100 per cent healthy, pure aquifer water with no chemical additives.

But by insisting on permanent chlorination the Napier City Council is blindly following the dictates of the Havelock North Water Inquiry without understanding that the reasoning behind the inquiry panel's recommendation is flawed.

The fact is that during the gastro crisis in Havelock North in 2016 the Hawke's Bay Regional Council tested all the private bores in the vicinity.

The tests were clear: There was no campylobacter in the private bores. People who drank from their own bores did NOT get sick. The council bores were the problem.

Twenty years ago 80 people got sick as a result of campylobacter contamination of Havelock North's town supply. The inquiry into that outbreak determined that the council's poor maintenance of the bores was the likely cause.

In 2016 it was again the poor management by the Hastings District Council which was at the heart of the gastro outbreak in Havelock North. HDC had never cleaned out the bores and had persistently refused to raise the boreheads above ground level. But for some strange reason the inquiry panel decided "on the balance of probabilities" that the fault lay with an "insecure" water source.

The belief that the aquifer was "insecure" has subsequently been popularised. The whole of Hastings and Napier has now been lumped in with Havelock North.

Worse still, this flawed belief has resulted in a call for mandatory chlorination throughout the whole of New Zealand.

There is no need for the Napier City Council to follow the Hastings District Council, permanently disinfecting our pristine water supply with chlorine, as if Napier's water supply is no different from the contaminated water dished up to Havelock North residents by the Hastings District Council via a poorly maintained water supply network back in August 2016.

If the water bottling companies can have pristine water then so should Napier: We draw from the same secure confined aquifer. Once the NCC has completed the cleanup of its bores and network we should be able to return to normal: 100 per cent healthy, pure aquifer water with no chemical additives.

By early July we should all expect that the council can remove the blanket chlorination of our drinking water, and revert to stringent E. coli testing with chlorine treatment merely forming part of the emergency public health measures.

This was the approach the council took when two E. coli tests returned a low-level positive reading early last year, in two isolated incidents.

But then the public became aware that the council had decided to continue using chlorine, not because people were getting sick or because of any further E. coli transgressions, but in order to clean out the 60km of underground pipe network. That work needed to be done, and has now been completed.

Since the Havelock North contamination crisis hopefully collaboration has improved between the district health board and the Napier City Council to ensure early detection of public health risks are responded to promptly with "Boil Water" notices and temporary "incident chlorination".

This is what the Christchurch City Council intends to do once its bores and supply network has been upgraded.

Like Napier, Christchurch has a unique aquifer which provides most of the city's municipal drinking water. The Canterbury medical officer of health, Alistair Humphrey, says there is no need for permanent chlorination of municipal water supplies in Christchurch.

Perhaps the Napier City Council should be talking to its counterparts in Christchurch. It could save us a lot of time and money and, more importantly, it could genuinely safeguard public health.

Christchurch City councillors are determined to fight any attempts by central Government to impose mandatory chlorination of their pristine water supply.

If Christchurch can do it, why can't we?

Pauline Doyle and Ken Keys,
Spokespersons, Guardians of the Aquifer