Council plumbers and workers had responded to about 120 properties in the past week, Tate said.<\/p>\n
The visits were for sand, sediment, discoloured water, low pressure, appliance issues and drinking water requests.<\/p>\n
Tate said the number of reported issues was reducing, but the issue was not resolved.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs the number of streets and properties affected can change from day to day, naming individual streets would not give a reliable picture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mayor Andrew Tripe apologised on Friday to residents still affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe know this has been frustrating and disruptive for households, and we are sorry.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not as easy as just replacing pipes or continuing to flush certain streets that have been affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe water continues to test safe to drink.\u201d<\/p>\n
The council said it had \u201cimproved the situation for many properties\u201d by flushing sediment from the system. <\/p>\n
Castlecliff resident Robert Fallen first noticed sand while bathing on Friday.<\/p>\n
Castlecliff resident Robert Fallen said he had shared the bathtub with sand. Photo \/ Noam M\u0101nuka Lazarus<\/p>\n
\u201c[My caregiver] just finished bathing me, and she was just going to rinse it out, and I said, \u2018Look at the sand\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
He ran water in the bathtub again on Monday and it was still \u201ca bloody sandpit\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been fine … but I don\u2019t drink much [tap] water; I drink Fanta. My lifesaver, they call it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Julie Siemonek said water pressure in her taps and shower first reduced a few months ago, but the problem escalated in early September.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the pressure. We\u2019ve always had good pressure here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kids and the grandkids and that, they loved coming up here and jumping in our shower.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the council had not visited their home, Siemonek said she had not raised the concern with it either.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey chuck [the letters] in the letterbox and all of that, sporadically.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we know is just, sort of, what\u2019s reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil the council does their bit and actually finds out why it\u2019s happening, you can\u2019t really do anything about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll just be nice once they get it sorted. Otherwise, we\u2019re living the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tate said the council was receiving independent assurance on whether its proposed solutions were \u201cappropriate\u201d.<\/p>\n
Castlecliff has about 20km of water mains and although faster, more aggressive interventions could be done, this could create new problems, he said.<\/p>\n
Engineers advised the council on precedential issues during the Christchurch earthquakes, but the circumstances were very different, Tate said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an unusual event.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs work on a longer-term plan to resolve the issue is still underway, final costs won\u2019t be available until a later date. We are working with our insurers as part of this process to also minimise costs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tate said the council could not \u201creliably\u201d quantify the water flushed from the system, but it was a \u201cconsiderable\u201d volume.<\/p>\n
The council set up a water tanker to provide drinking water to affected residents on September 10.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the council announced it had moved the tanker from Thatcher St \u201cafter some lowlifes stole the truck batteries\u201d.<\/p>\n
The theft took place between 10am and 4pm on Friday, it said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tanker was unattended because we did not expect equipment brought in to support the community would be targeted,\u201d Tate said.<\/p>\n
A security guard was monitoring the water tanker at the surf club at Castlecliff Beach after the council reported its batteries were stolen at a previous location. Photo \/ Noam M\u0101nuka Lazarus<\/p>\n
It is now available outside the surf club at Castlecliff Beach from 10am to 4pm daily, with a contracted security guard monitoring it.<\/p>\n
Anyone with information about the theft was asked to contact police on 105.<\/p>\n
Community drop-in sessions<\/p>\n
People can attend community drop-in sessions from 10am to 2pm on Saturday and Sunday at the Duncan Pavilion, Castlecliff Beach.<\/p>\n
The council is still arranging water deliveries and plumbers as needed, and considering reimbursements for affected residents who applied.<\/p>\n
It advised residents with sand coming through their inside taps to turn them off straight away and run the outside tap closest to their supply for 10-15 minutes.<\/p>\n
If the issue does not clear, residents should call the council on (06) 349 0001.<\/p>\n
Blocked tap aerators, filters or shower heads could also be cleaned, the council said.<\/p>\n
Noam M\u0101nuka Lazarus (Ng\u0101ti Wh\u0101tua o Kaipara) is a multimedia journalist at the Whanganui Chronicle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council plumbers and workers had responded to about 120 properties in the past week, Tate said. The visits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[806,114108,50327,307528,5205,7557,273,27892,78,76,77386,186721,4486,111,139,69,1118,90,2170,72726,29056,2751,61680,147,105772,27950,14738,147711,17294,73393,150326,376,1883],"class_list":["post-626165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-as","tag-assurance","tag-attempting","tag-castlecliffs","tag-council","tag-district","tag-environment","tag-household","tag-in","tag-issue","tag-longerterm","tag-mains","tag-month","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-plan","tag-prepares","tag-proposed","tag-sand","tag-sandy","tag-science","tag-seaside","tag-seeks","tag-solution","tag-stabilise","tag-suburb","tag-tap","tag-taps","tag-water","tag-whanganui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626165","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=626165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}