Five of Whakatāne district's nine drinking water schemes failed to comply with new drinking water standards in the first quarter of this financial year – albeit for only short periods in most cases.

The quarterly report for July 1 to September 30, which measures the council's non-financial performance against its Long-Term Plan, adopted in July last year, was presented at a meeting last week.

Of the 39 non-financial performance measures reported quarterly, 36 were on track to be achieved. Two mandatory measures that did not meet targets were around compliance with central government's new drinking water standards that came into effect in November.

The report said a 'brief instance of low UV at the Tāneatua water treatment plant” resulted in that scheme not meeting parts four and five of the standards.

Part four deals with bacterial content of water after it leaves the treatment plant while part five deals with protozoal compliance criteria assessed at the treatment plant.

The other eight schemes were all compliant with part four of the standards, however, the target set in the long-term plan had been for all nine schemes to be compliant.

Three other schemes were non-compliant with part five only. These were Murupara and Rangitaiki Plains schemes, which the report said did not have the necessary infrastructure to consistently meet requirements, and the Ruatoki scheme, due to instances of high turbidity at the treatment plant.

The report went on to say that where filtration and ultraviolet disinfection infrastructure were not in place, or when treatment was interrupted, back-up systems mitigated any potential health risk.

The long-term plan had set the target of eight out of the nine schemes being compliant.

Mayor Victor Luca said that these non-compliances could be triggered by 'very transitory events”.

'It's only needed to be turbid for a short period before something goes red.”

Mandatory targets around drinking water the council did achieve were around the number of complaints received for every 1000 connections about water clarity, taste, odour, pressure or continuity of supply and median response times to call-outs.

The council was below the 30 complaints per 1000 connections, with 0.26 per 1000 connections. It met the median response time to call-outs of less than an hour to reach the site and less than eight hours to resolve the problem for urgent call-outs and less than 24 hours to reach the site and less than 48 hours to resolve the problem for non-urgent call outs.

The report showed that the council was on track to meet all of its targets in regards to stormwater and wastewater.

-Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ On Air.