Council spokesman Gerard Langford said the upgrade would achieve \u201cseveral things\u201d.<\/p>\n
New installations include biologically activated carbon filters, copper and carbon dioxide dosing systems, ultraviolet (UV) disinfection, chlorine gas disinfection and storage, and improved filter cleaning and monitoring systems.<\/p>\n
These will lower ammonia levels in the water and help maintain chlorine levels required under the new water quality monitoring and reporting rules.<\/p>\n
P\u0101tea\u2019s water supply comes from deep underground bores.<\/p>\n
Langford said the bore water was \u201cvery safe\u201d and \u201creally good-quality water\u201d because of natural filtration.<\/p>\n
The council was not required to further filter the bore water before the most recent updates, he said.<\/p>\n
In September, Taumata Arowai directed the council to issue a boil-water notice<\/a> in P\u0101tea after a routine test detected possible E. coli bacteria in the town\u2019s water supply.<\/p>\n The advisory was lifted two days later after further testing found the water supply was safe.<\/p>\n \u201cNothing had actually changed with the water but, because we weren\u2019t putting it through chlorination or a UV filter, we had to put that boil-water notice on,\u201d Langford said.<\/p>\n The council tested the water supply weekly.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t because we\u2019d found anything in the water. It was because we didn\u2019t have the UV disinfection.\u201d<\/p>\n He said UV filtration was installed before the main upgrade work to avoid more boil-water notices.<\/p>\n Water restrictions were issued in P\u0101tea on February 10 after one of the two pumps used to extract water from the underground bores broke.<\/p>\n After repairs were completed on the second pump in early March, drought levels across the South Taranaki District reached the threshold for water restrictions.<\/p>\n District-wide level one water restrictions are in effect until further notice.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was quite confusing to explain,\u201d Langford said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat we were going from level three [water restrictions] in P\u0101tea to level one everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n The council uses a level one to three water restriction system, with level three banning all non-essential water use.<\/p>\n Under current level one restrictions, residents are asked to avoid non-essential water use, including water blasting and car washing, and to fix leaks.<\/p>\n Households should alternate using outdoor hoses between 8pm and 6am by odd house numbers on odd calendar days and even numbers on even days.<\/p>\n Unattended hoses, pool filling and lawn watering are banned under level one.<\/p>\n More information on the treatment plant upgrade and water restrictions is available on the council\u2019s website<\/a> and Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n Erin Smith is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council spokesman Gerard Langford said the upgrade would achieve \u201cseveral things\u201d. New installations include biologically activated carbon filters,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[191523,165055,11231,21659,273,1132,111,139,69,4885,50544,191524,19098,147,19862,61,2766,58455,14043,376],"class_list":{"0":"post-364243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-191523","9":"tag-592m","10":"tag-boost","11":"tag-drinking","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-million","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz","17":"tag-plant","18":"tag-ptea","19":"tag-pteas","20":"tag-safe","21":"tag-science","22":"tag-supply","23":"tag-to","24":"tag-treatment","25":"tag-underway","26":"tag-upgrade","27":"tag-water"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364243","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=364243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}