![\"Glass](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/glass-of-water-IQC2WMF3QZG3HDOMGXSV7SKYZ4.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTwizel\u2019s water supply was cut off on Tuesday after a sudden shut-down of the treatment plant, leaving many residents without running water.<\/p>\n
By Claire Taylor of Local Democracy Reporting<\/p>\n
The shut-down highlighted gaps in the Mackenzie Country town’s infrastructure, but a council spokesperson said the team worked quickly to replace the faulty parts.<\/p>\n
Dozens of residents commented about water outages on the Twizel Community Facebook page, from about 6pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Facebook user Catherine Coull posted about the outage, stating they had attempted to contact Mackenzie water but had no luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to call but the line was busy \u2013 clearly plenty of others also trying. The correspondence in the community FB page was really helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Glass of water (Source: istock.com)<\/p>\n
Twizel Community Care Trust vice-chairperson Jacqui De Buyzer posted at 6.30pm about low water pressure on Tussock Bend, prompting her to contact the council after-hours and post updates to the community page.<\/p>\n
As the admin of the community page, she told Local Democracy Reporting she often received information from the council to post on the community page.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have anything [from council] so that\u2019s why I sort of took charge and thought I\u2019d reassure people that it was being fixed.”<\/p>\n
She was told by the council\u2019s after-hours that they had received a number of calls and someone had been dispatched.<\/p>\n
Her post at 6:40pm read: \u201cHelp on the way, but probably 2 hours before any change to pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
She noted after an hour from her call, the issues were rectified.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie District Council\u2019s general manager operations and regulatory services Neil Jorgenson said the Twizel water treatment had shut itself down Tuesday evening and required repairs and replacements.<\/p>\n
He said Twizel\u2019s water treatment plant has three parallel trains of UV units, controlled by intensity sensors which are required to be replaced at intervals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that this is the first time that they have been replaced since the UV unit was installed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe three sensors were replaced yesterday with new ones and then unfortunately all of them faulted during the evening.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the sensors fault, the plant automatically shuts down to ensure unmonitored water is not being dispersed into the pipe network.<\/p>\n
Jorgensen said the intensity sensors controlling the UV units of the plant will now be replaced one at a time, avoiding future issues.<\/p>\n
Jorgenson noted that most water treatment plants have a water reservoir that holds additional treated water in the event water issues arise, something Twizel does not have.<\/p>\n
This means any plant failure immediately cuts off Twizel\u2019s water supply, something Jorgensen said could be avoided if Twizel had a treated water reservoir.<\/p>\n
A team was dispatched to the water treatment plant yesterday evening, one based in Twizel and the others in Fairlie – an hour away.<\/p>\n
Jorgensen said the distance of the district can sometimes impact response times but that the team had worked quickly, removing faulty sensors, reinstalling old sensors, and recommissioning the plant and pipe network.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis takes awhile (up to 2 hours) as air has to be removed both at the plant and in the pipe network to ensure there are no pressure spikes, which can cause pipe bursts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A treated water reservoir would ensure residents aren\u2019t left without water in situations where response teams have to drive large distances across the district.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twizel\u2019s water supply was cut off on Tuesday after a sudden shut-down of the treatment plant, leaving many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[158,42,687,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-370960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-christchurch-canterbury","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-housing-and-infrastructure","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370960","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=370960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}