The regulator’s report on drinking water regulation shows some major improvements in protection against infection, particularly in schools.<\/p>\n
Water Services Authority Taumata Arowai’s Drinking Water Regulation Report shows from 2023 to 2025, large council supplies meeting or almost meeting requirements has increased from 49 to 77 percent.<\/p>\n
The number of long-term drinking water advisories for schools was also down from 17 to seven in the same year, and schools were more consistent about notifying the authority.<\/p>\n
Taumata Arowai head of operations Steve Taylor said the results real improvements in how suppliers were treating, monitoring and reporting.<\/p>\n
“Treatment barriers, regular monitoring and prompt action when something goes wrong are practical safeguards. They help prevent people from becoming sick from their drinking water,” he said.<\/p>\n
However, the agency said there was more progress still to be made, with at least one supply across 33 council areas missing a basic treatment barrier and 51 supplies missing protozoa barriers as of the end of 2025, affecting 311,000 people.<\/p>\n
Protozoa barriers stop or kill single-celled bacteria and viruses from entering water supplies and can help prevent illnesses, such as the 2023 cryptosporidiosis outbreak in Queenstown that affected nearly 100 people.<\/p>\n
Taylor said the regulator would use the report to focus its work, including working with suppliers.<\/p>\n
He said the authority had issued four directions in 2025 to require suppliers to take action to protect drinking water.<\/p>\n
About 84 percent of New Zealanders now rely on drinking water provided by suppliers registered with the authority.<\/p>\n
The report showed 98 percent of council supplies had bacterial treatment barriers in 2025, up from 96 percent in 2023; 94 percent had residual disinfection barriers, up from 92 percent; and 90 percent had protozoal barriers, up from 76 percent.<\/p>\n
About 415,000 more New Zealanders been receiving water from council supplies with a protozoa barrier.<\/p>\n
The total number of supplies that reported contaminants above acceptable levels was down about 22.5 percent, and laboratory notifications were down about 25.5 percent.<\/p>\n
Chemical monitoring also improved, from 54 percent to 81 percent of large treatment plants meeting or almost meeting requirements from 2023 to 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The regulator’s report on drinking water regulation shows some major improvements in protection against infection, particularly in schools.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-606703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606703","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=606703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}