There has been a suggestionthat South Wairarapa District Council had received a preliminary positive test result for E.coli during the day on 8^th April 2019 and didn’t say anything about it at the public meeting in Martinborough that evening.

However, what happened was that Council took a routine sample on the 8^th and received the preliminary positive E.coli result on the 9^th, then issued Boil Water notice as soon as possible that day.

The decision was made to issue the Boil Water Notice on the basis of a preliminary result because we didn’t want to take any risks with the health of the community while we waited for the test results to be confirmed by a second sample test.

The April incident, following the February incident, underlines why it’s so important that a drinking water supply has multiple barriers of protection to ensure that it is safe. The establishment of the manganese extraction plant and continued chlorination of the water supply addresses this vulnerability.

ENDS