From the Mayor
Today, 24th April, the Council resolved to the temporary chlorination of the Martinborough water supply
It’s been an incredibly busy couple of weeks as we’ve been responding to the second positive E.coli test result on 9 April 2019. This time it was traced back to the reservoirs and Shooting Butts Road areas. Thankfully, subsequent tests have come back clear, but our Boil Water Notice has remained in place.
It’s certainly disruptive to daily life having to boil our drinking water, but protecting the health or residents and visitors to Martinborough is our number one priority. We’ve been working closely with Regional Public Health towards establishing a multi-barrier approach of UV treatment (in place since 2011) and temporary chlorination of the Martinborough water supply, while investigations into the source of recent positive E.coli test results are under way.
This isn’t something that we’ve done lightly as it’s a significant change the community and for our wineries and beer making industries. In light of that, we’ve made sure that there’s reasonable lead-in time for these industries to respond and make sure that products are not affected in any way. The date for the temporary chlorination of the Martinborough water supply has been set at 13 May 2019.
We will be doing everything possible to reduce the community impact of temporarily chlorinating the water. This will involve proactively flushing the water infrastructure network in the next few weeks. Some people may experience a bit of water discolouration initially, but it shouldn’t be too bad. This short-term problem is part of having safe water while working towards a permanent solution.
More information about why we need to temporarily chlorinate, and how to manage chlorine in the drinking water has been added to our website at swdc.govt.nz/Martinborough-town-water-situation.
In the meantime, please continue to boil your drinking water as the presence of E.coli has proven to be intermittent.
Viv Napier
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