Thames-Coromandel District Council is spending nearly $16 million over the next three years to upgrade 10 water treatment facilities across the district.

'We're ramping up what we need to do to keep improving the quality of our drinking water supplies, as we take actions after lessons learned from what happened in Havelock North,” says council's project manager Andrew Boden.

A government inquiry was sparked by the 2016 Havelock North gastro outbreak, which was linked to four deaths, and called for a major overhaul of water supplies, including mandatory treatment.

Whitianga's new water treatment plant at Moewai Road was the first plant to be upgraded, marking an important milestone in the drinking water standards project – Tautiaki Wai Maori.

Contractors Masons Engineers built the new $2.8 million water treatment facility on the same site as the old one on Moewai Road.

'This new plant has the latest technology and methodologies for treating our water including Evoca supplied membrane units, new filtration, dosing and monitoring equipment.

'Masons Engineers are now underway with the Tairua upgrade and expect it to be completed early next year, with Pauanui also scheduled to start this month and finish late 2020.”

The new water treatment plant works at these two sites involve new stand-alone buildings, water and chemical storage tanks, along with civil works including earthmoving, roading and fencing. The plants will also have new machinery, telemetry and control and chemical dosing system.

Following on from these two sites, the next two on the upgrade schedule is Coromandel Town, with the remaining treatment plants at Whangamata, Onemana, Matarangi, then Hahei following after.

All of these upgrades will ensure the drinking water quality complies with the current NZ Drinking Water standards.