{"id":280299,"date":"2026-02-12T10:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/280299\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T10:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T10:32:09","slug":"former-mayor-offers-quirky-advice-for-water-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/280299\/","title":{"rendered":"Former mayor offers quirky advice for water complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Taumata<\/p>\n

\nTaumata Arowai local government engagement specialist Tim Cadogan was mayor of Central Otago until 2024. (File photo).
\nPhoto: Supplied \/ ODT via LDR\n<\/p>\n

A former mayor-turned water specialist has offered some humorous advice on dealing with complaints – just ask people how much contamination they’re comfortable with.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, water regulator Taumata Arowai specialist Tim Cadogan dialled in from Wellington to share safety insights with Southland district councillors.<\/p>\n

The former Central Otago mayor’s presentation was upbeat but also included some sobering details, such as results from recent testing showing 43 E coli notifications around the country.<\/p>\n

“So that’s 43 times that water supplies in New Zealand were essentially infiltrated by faeces. And two of those last week were council supplies.”<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Cadogan said it was common in New Zealand for people to think their water was fine, or the best in the country.<\/p>\n

“Most of our water’s good most of the time, but not all of our water is good all of the time.<\/p>\n

“And if there’s one thing I want councillors to take away, it’s that fact. That it can go wrong. It does go wrong. And when it goes wrong, people can get really sick. People can die<\/a>, and have.”<\/p>\n

Taumata Arowai Water Services Authority was set up in 2021 following the Havelock North contamination event<\/a> which was linked to the deaths of four people and left more than 5000 ill.<\/p>\n

Cadogan offered some sage advice for dealing with members of the public who were critical about water standards being too high, or costing too much money.<\/p>\n

“Say to them \u2026 ‘hey, what level of E coli, or what level of giardia, or what level of norovirus is actually okay?<\/p>\n

“And generally people will agree that zero’s the number that they want.”<\/p>\n

There were four ways of protecting against unsafe water, he explained – protecting the source, filtration, disinfection and secure distribution.<\/p>\n

Good source water had benefits because it was cheaper to treat, while disinfection included methods such as chlorine and UV.<\/p>\n

The final step was secure distribution, or making sure water got to the final tap in the network safely. Residual chlorine in the pipe network played a role in that.<\/p>\n

“Because if you have a break in the pipe, bugs can get in as easily as water can get out,” Cadogan said.<\/p>\n

Cadogan served as Central Otago mayor from 2016 to 2024 before stepping aside to take up the role of local government engagement specialist at Taumata Arowai.<\/p>\n

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taumata Arowai local government engagement specialist Tim Cadogan was mayor of Central Otago until 2024. (File photo). Photo:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-280299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280299","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=280299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}