\u201cWe are currently in the detailed design phase,\u201d said head of water Sharon Danks. \u201cThis will ensure the treatment plant can consistently meet New Zealand drinking water standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs part of the upgrade, a new ultraviolet disinfection system will be added to provide an additional barrier against microbiological contaminants.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nationwide, the rules do not require regular monitoring for PFAS and Watercare does not do routine testing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe continue to look at global trends and learnings from PFAS monitoring and testing,\u201d Danks told RNZ.<\/p>\n
The chemicals, which were invented in the 1930s and used in the US atomic-bomb-making Manhattan Project, have an almost indestructible carbon-fluorine bond and now number more than 12,000 different types. They are the subject of lawsuits and clean-ups in the United States and Europe.<\/p>\n
New Zealand has not followed other countries in reducing the thresholds at which they are considered safe.<\/p>\n
At times, tests at Onehunga in 2023 and last year found the sort of low levels that had closed the plant in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u2018Strong position\u2019<\/p>\n
Onehunga community\u2019s water supply comes from the metropolitan water network.<\/p>\n
In summer 2023, the agency activated its consent to take more water from the Waikato River to make up for the 18 million litres a day lost at Onehunga.<\/p>\n
However, Danks said Auckland\u2019s water supply was currently in a \u201cstrong position\u201d, using its full dams to maximise production at the Ardmore and Huia water treatment plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver summer, as water demand increases, we will increase production at our Waikato Water Treatment Plant, which treats water from the Waikato River,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Its second Waikato treatment plant was offline and not needed to supplement supply.<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe are currently in the detailed design phase,\u201d said head of water Sharon Danks. \u201cThis will ensure the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21417,16492,111,43,139,69,1118,31779,31341,110499,21037,4885,2574,61,110498],"class_list":{"0":"post-170926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-21417","9":"tag-delays","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-of","15":"tag-onehunga","16":"tag-pennington","17":"tag-pfascontaminated","18":"tag-phil","19":"tag-plant","20":"tag-reopening","21":"tag-to","22":"tag-watercare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}