A 'pure water' plan takes time. Ask Seddon

Tuesday, 27 August 2019

'By the liberal use of a blackboard and a piece of chalk,' a councillor for south Marlborough tried to detail the Awatere Water scheme to Seddon residents in 1936.

The Marlborough Express reported the Awatere County Council meeting was 'well attended' as councillor J. A. Reilly explained 'fairly exhaustively' the financial aspects of the scheme.

The council had been looking at a loan of £26,000, now about $3 million, for the project, and was discussing the possible impact on local rates.

'On a basis of the price we have on hand no one should hesitate to vote for the scheme, especially if one would rather have his stock drink pure water,' Reilly said.

**READ MORE:

* Emergency repairs needed to protect a water supply in south Marlborough

* Seddon's boil water notice has officially lifted

* Clean tap water so close they can almost taste it**

But Reilly's promises of pure water were premature, about 83 years premature. 

On Monday, after decades of community efforts to get clean water straight from the tap, Seddon finally had its boil water notice lifted, with residents happy to see the back of school water runs and 'tea-coloured' baths.

Long-time Seddon resident and former Awatere Seddon Water Group chairman of 22 years Ron Hebberd recalled cycling to the rural town in the 1960s, and knocking on a door for a glass of water.

'It had come off the roof and it was the rusty colour of tea water,' he said.

Years later, in 1974, a storm caused slips to fall into the Black Birch Steam, where a later Awatere Water scheme got its water, which 'washed the system out and put dirt into it', Hebberd said.

'From then on, that's when we had the real dirty water. When it floods, fine mud gets in. You need various equipment to get it out,' Hebberd said.

Hebberd said former Prime Minister Helen Clark announced plans to treat the nation's water for between $50 million and $175m during her time in office, and rolled out Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand in 2005.

  The act, revised in October 2008, said suppliers had to start using a Public Health Risk Management Plan to guide safe management of their supply before July 2016, with the aim of being fully compliant by 2025.

But the Marlborough District Council estimated at the time it would cost $50m to treat its water alone - a large chunk of Clark's budget.

'It fell apart, as it was too expensive,' Hebberd said.

'It took 44 years to develop not only because of the pricing, but because the council didn't have the equipment at the time to find water bugs.'

He recalled a seven-year period where there was no movement on the treatment plant, as the Government mulled over how to treat rural water.

A treatment plant could have been installed in that time, Hebberd said.

Hebberd never boiled his tap water, as 'bugs [were] not much trouble'.

'No-one has died from the water here. People with ill health, or babies, it might affect them, but to healthy people, it does no difference,' he said.

'At least seven or eight people have been killed on the roads since this thing started, including my granddaughter. People are dying there.

'Isn't that more serious, and more deserving of our time?'

Seddon began receiving clean drinking water in October last year, following the installation of a multimillion-dollar water treatment plant. An official opening was held for the plant in March this year.

Nelson Marlborough Health allowed the council to lift the town's boil water notice on Monday morning, after it completed a final series of checks by a drinking water assessor.

Awatere Seddon Water Group chairman Rick Hammond thought a lack of drive caused the treatment plant to spend decades being developed.

'I would have preferred if this [the lifting of the boil water notice] had happened years ago, but no-one considered it important,' he said.

'I got on as chair and championed for change. The feeling was, 'It has always been that way'. But that didn't mean it had to remain that way.

'We don't want to convey the impression of a third world … [but] if we don't have clean drinking water, then I think our priorities are mixed.'

Hammond said he had lived near Seddon for 53 years, and recalled times when the water became 'undrinkable'.

'During heavy rain, sediment in the water made it undrinkable,' he said.

Long-time Seddon resident Terry Renner said before the Awatere Water scheme was installed, his family had to cart water from the Awatere County Council to their home.

But once a new system was installed, sourced from the Black Birch Stream, his family had 'running water, all year around'.

He recalled running baths for his children in the 1970s, and the 'tea-coloured water' making the tub look 'horrible' and 'more like a bowl of soup' than a cleansing bath, with sediment lining the bottom.

Renner said his tap water had been 'good' for the past few years.

'It's cloudy, yes, but it's never like what it use to be,' he said.

'I never stopped drinking out of the tap. But with people starting to shift here over the years, some of them got a sore tum. Locals got used to it.

'The things that kids are drinking these days, all those sugar drinks, those are far worse for the gut than water with a bit of bugs in it.'

Seddon School principal Tania Pringle said the lifting of the boil water notice was 'fantastic' and made life 'a lot easier' for the community.

'Now there are chemicals in water, but that's a necessity for these things to happen. We now know, however small a risk [there was], that none of us will be catching things from the water,' she said.

Pringle had spent the past 11 years working with the notice hanging over her head. The health risk meant water containers had to be brought along by teachers and families when the school held events.

Some of the school's water taps had 'drinkable' water, or water that had been through a filter, and didn't need boiling, but a lot didn't.

High sedimentation could cause the filter to stop working, setting off an alarm and forcing the school onto its backup water supply, she said.

During the boil water notice, she would boil her home's tap water for children, older people or guests, but would often not boil it for herself.

'After it rains, you don't want to wash your whites, and you don't want to draw up a bath. It's much easier to have a shower and not look at the colour of the water coming out of your taps,' Pringle said.

Cosy Corner employee Marlene Jackson said she had never boiled her tap water since moving to Seddon 15 years ago.

'I wouldn't let the grandchildren drink the water from my tap, though. Just myself,' Jackson said.

She said while lifting the boil water notification was 'good', it would not change her way of life.