John said seasonal restrictions were not unusual for Kairakau, but the timing and severity were.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt happens yearly just for short periods or towards the end of the summer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this is unprecedented.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 25 years we\u2019ve been here we\u2019ve never had problems with restrictions at this time of year,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
Now, with restrictions in place, the pair are trying to work out how to host their extended family of about 13 people when regular showers, laundry, dishwashers, and constant toilet flushing are off the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to do because we can\u2019t have our family here for summer,\u201d Mary says.<\/p>\n
At the Kairakau camping ground, long-time visitor Peter Edge said water shortages had been a recurring issue for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been coming here for about 35 years, and they\u2019ve never really kept up with demand,\u201d Edge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s getting worse with the drier summers. I don\u2019t know what the solution is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Camping ground worker Jay Pemberton said showers were currently shut during the day, with water only available for a few hours in the evening to manage demand.<\/p>\n
Kairakau camping ground, where water use is being closely managed under level 4 restrictions. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n
Resident Ted Bibby, whose family has been coming to Kairakau since the 1920s, said while water quality upgrades had been prioritised, the real issue lay with ageing infrastructure, distribution, and council communication about water conservation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a gold-plated water supply, but the delivery is shonky,\u201d Bibby said.<\/p>\n
He said tankers were frequently brought in to top up the system, but water was leaving the network as quickly as it arrived, raising concerns that ageing pipes could be contributing to leaks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can put four tankers in, and it\u2019s going out as fast as they\u2019re filling it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pipes are probably 70 years old, and I haven\u2019t even got a turncock that operates on my system. I can\u2019t turn the council water off, and the supply pipe goes underneath certain houses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Central Hawke\u2019s Bay District Council chief executive Doug Tate said water sources remained \u201cextremely low\u201d and the situation was being closely monitored.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no sign of a significant leak in Kairakau, but there have been extremely dry conditions for a number of months,\u201d Tate says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we increase water restriction levels, we always let our communities know through a number of platforms, including changing our water restrictions sign, social media, an ad on the local radio station, alerting media via media release and a letter drop.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said residents\u2019 efforts had already reduced water use by about 15%, and tanker water had not yet been required since restrictions increased.<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks to the efforts of those living in Kairakau, we\u2019ve seen a 15% drop in water usage, and haven\u2019t yet had to tanker water out since the increase in restriction levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
With MetService and Niwa forecasting continued dry conditions and the beach population expected to swell over Christmas, Tate said tankering would continue as needed but urged people to conserve water.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John said seasonal restrictions were not unusual for Kairakau, but the timing and severity were. \u201cIt happens yearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7972,12412,120382,18399,1259,93307,5981,55604,5988,73392,2082,8619,305,42,8454,296,114015,25449,424,9812,43,5970,530,54895,3271,14625,29889,40,38,41,39,19054,8238,376,14905],"class_list":["post-193951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-beach","tag-brace","tag-calculation","tag-christmas","tag-community","tag-constant","tag-daily","tag-deciding","tag-families","tag-flushing","tag-for","tag-fun","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-including","tag-into","tag-kairakau","tag-level","tag-life","tag-needs","tag-news","tag-really","tag-residents","tag-restrictions","tag-should","tag-summer","tag-toilet","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-turned","tag-under","tag-water","tag-whether"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193951","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=193951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}