Residents in the Marlborough town of Seddon have been asked to conserve water immediately after a major leak was found on the Awatere rural water main.
Council engineers are working to find and fix the leak on the main which supplies Seddon and surrounding areas – including Seaview, Grassmere and rural Awatere south of the river.
Marlborough Waters establishment chief executive Richard Coningham said residents should conserve water for the next 48 hours.
“Unfortunately it appears the leak may be in the pipe where it travels underneath the river bed. This means it may be challenging to fix,” he said.
“We expect the fix is going to take at least 48 hours. However we don’t know exactly what the problem is at this stage – it will take a bit of time to pinpoint the problem.”
Council engineers were in touch with contractors for an early start on Wednesday morning, Coningham said.
“It’s quite likely water will need to be tankered in to supply Seddon township if we can’t fix the leak quickly. Residents are strongly encouraged to conserve water as much as possible for at least the next 48 hours.”
He said residents in the rural Awatere and Dashwood areas (not including Seddon), which were under a permanent boil water notice, should continue to boil their water as it did not currently meet the NZ Drinking Water Standard.