Drinking Water
Council supplies metered drinking water to 15,700 properties (about 34,000 people) across the Western Bay of Plenty District through a complex network of reticulation.
This network supplies three zones – Eastern, Central and Western – from which water is pumped from underground aquifers to individual properties.
Until the late 1990s Council’s water supply came from surface-fed sources (rivers and streams). These supplies sometimes failed to reach the national drinking water quality standards due to the water being affected by rainfall, rising waters, silts and turbidity. This resulted in Council being unable to supply clean potable water all the time. The overland nature of our infrastructure also put it at risk of damage in storms and floods.
We decided to convert from surface-fed to secure underground aquifers pumped by bores. This enabled us to achieve a more consistent quality of water and reliability of supply. It also allowed Council to increase its capacity to meet future demand and to improve reliability of supply in drought conditions.
This scheme employs the best technology to manage surface-fed supplies and consistently produce high quality drinking water.
Plumbosolvency
Flush those taps!
Most drinking water in Aotearoa New Zealand is plumbosolvent. This means the water can dissolve small amounts of metals it may encounter, such as lead and copper in your plumbing fittings (like pipes and taps). Drinking water with high levels of heavy metal is a health concern.
Council must ensure that the water we supply to you complies with the Drinking Water Standards, which sets maximum levels for metals in water. However, we are only responsible for drinking water quality up to the point of supply, which is normally the toby outside of your property.
There may be metals in the plumbing within your property such as in the taps or other fixtures, which happens after the water has been supplied. Newer, better-quality fittings are likely to contain less harmful metals.
The Ministry of Health recommends:
- When you first turn on your tap in the morning, run your tap to fill a large cup of water.
- Tip the cup of water down the sink
- You should also do this at other times when your tap has not been used for a while, like when you come back from holiday.
This will help remove metals that might have been dissolved or absorbed from your plumbing fittings.
Flushing your drinking water taps is recommended for all households, whether on public or private water supplies.
Other places – including businesses, community buildings, and schools – should also have systems in place to ensure that drinking water taps are regularly flushed, particularly after periods of not using them like after the weekend and school holidays.
