{"id":299201,"date":"2026-02-24T04:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/299201\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T04:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T04:51:09","slug":"warning-lifted-at-rotoruas-tikitapu-blue-lake-after-toilet-leak-contamination-scare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/299201\/","title":{"rendered":"Warning lifted at Rotorua\u2019s Tikitapu (Blue Lake) after toilet leak contamination scare"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fault had since been fixed. <\/p>\n

The toilets were cleaned, and, as a precaution, the area was cordoned off with warning signs. <\/p>\n

There were no visible signs of contamination in the lake, and water testing showed no contamination. <\/p>\n

Further testing returned safe preliminary results and an update released by the council today confirmed final test results showed the lake had remained within safe bathing standards since Sunday.<\/p>\n

The precautionary health warning has now been lifted, and signage has been removed. <\/p>\n

Te Arawa Lakes Trust<\/a> general manager Tame Malcolm said he was disappointed the trust received no notification of the leak.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have always partnered with Rotorua Lakes Council to improve infrastructure and manage that problem. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo again, disappointing that we found out about it through the media despite statutory agreements, and I have the assurances from them last year that they will notify us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malcolm also said board members, especially T\u016bhourangi and those in the wider area who whakapapa to the lake, were confused and disappointed they were not included. <\/p>\n

The council responded: \u201cWe are in conversations with Mr Malcolm to understand and resolve this directly with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council said it took a precautionary approach and urged people to avoid the water until final test results were known.<\/p>\n

Health officials warned that contaminated water could cause anything from stomach illnesses to respiratory, skin, ear and eye infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fault had since been fixed. The toilets were cleaned, and, as a precaution, the area was cordoned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1975,1558,15497,40176,71,134,18087,13207,5603,19476,111,43,139,69,128570,3109,38715,6661,4499,136553,29889,1455],"class_list":["post-299201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-at","tag-been","tag-blue","tag-contamination","tag-from","tag-health","tag-issued","tag-lake","tag-leak","tag-lifted","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-precautionary","tag-public","tag-rotoruas","tag-scare","tag-small","tag-tikitapu","tag-toilet","tag-warning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299201","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=299201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}