{"id":563719,"date":"2026-08-09T11:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T11:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563719\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T11:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T11:48:11","slug":"schools-closed-as-ohakune-faces-water-shutdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/563719\/","title":{"rendered":"Schools closed as Ohakune faces water shutdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Ohakune schools will be closed on Monday as the town grapples with a water shutdown caused by leaking pipes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The Ruapehu District Council and water contractor Veolia are urging residents to conserve water, warning the town&#8217;s reservoir is down to 12 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">A council spokesperson said the leak, caused by last month&#8217;s earthquake, was discovered on Thursday and repaired the following day, but the need to remove air from the water line had delayed the fix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">The council had brought in port-a-loos and was providing tankers of drinking water, but stressed that they were for homes and essential services, and businesses may need to close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;The reservoir has been drained, so it takes time for that reservoir to refill and then for the treatment to come through,&#8221; Horizons Regional Council chair Nikki Riley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">&#8220;But until then, the good people of Tongariro Water will be supplying water for the township.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Tap water was not expected to be restored until 5pm Monday. If restored before then, the water would need to be boiled before use, the council said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">It warned against using public toilets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Drinking water was available at various locations around the town, it said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Nearly 1400 people live in Ohakune, but the population can double or treble during the ski season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Bottled water: Ruapehu District Council office, 38 Ayr St; Thames St opposite the Powderhorn; Goldfinch St\/Shannon St corner; rear car park of the Ohakune iSite; Clyde St car park; Moore St outside Top 10 Holiday Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Water tanker: Council office. Please reuse empty 5-litre bottles and refill them there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"[&amp;_em]:font-serif-text-italic [&amp;_cite]:font-serif-text-italic\">Port-a-loos: Council office, 38 Ayr St; Thames St opposite the Powderhorn; Goldfinch St\/Shannon St corner; rear car park of the Ohakune iSITE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ohakune schools will be closed on Monday as the town grapples with a water shutdown caused by leaking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-563719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563719","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=563719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}