Ranfurly and Patearoa residents will face more frequent boil water notices over the next seven months, as work begins on new protozoa barriers for water supplies.

The upgrades to the water treatment plants was required to be completed by the end of 2025 under directions from Taumata Arowai.

The new $3 million treatment solutions would solve both towns water turbidity issues they were prone to.

Protozoa barriers mitigated parasites, such as cryptosporidium, entering the water supply system. 

When protozoa was effectively removed or inactivated, the risk of outbreaks such as the one in Queenstown in September 2023, was substantially reduced.

Julie Muir, group manager - three waters, told council this week that they had to submit a risk mitigation plan to Taumata Arowai, that was currently awaiting sign off.

“We would expect there to be more boiled water notices coming out between now and Christmas, but we think it’s better to have these, when there is a heightened risk.”

But the water safety regulator wanted council to hold off sending out letters to residents informing them of the work, until after the mitigation plan was finalised.

“Nothing has actually changed from one year ago, three years ago, five years ago. We want to make it clear to the community that when there is a heightened risk, something has changed and they need to take an extra level of care,” Julie said.

Taumata Arowai initially suggested that a long-term boil water notice on both town supplies would be an appropriate action to mitigate the risk until the protozoa barriers were completed.

But council staff were concerned that a permanent boil water advisory could result in ‘alarm fatigue,’ and as a result people would fail to respond appropriately to increased risk.

The approach taken was to follow previous protocols and only issue a boil water notice for specific instances of elevated risk to ensure appropriate measures were taken by the community to prevent possible illness. 

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