Clutha District Mayor Jason (Jock) Martin is delighted to announce the last of the boil water notices for the district have now been lifted.
“Lifting of these last two boil water notices so that all our rural water schemes are now compliant is a major milestone for us at the end of a long improvement journey for the rural water scheme users.
“It reflects the tremendous amount of work and significant financial investment by Council over time to improve water quality for our rural water schemes.”
“We’d especially like to thank scheme users for their patience and understanding while these notices were active. This has been a long journey and a test on everyone’s resilience,” Mayor Martin says.
Council Infrastructure Strategy & Delivery Group Manager Donna McArthur says everyone has worked diligently to deliver quality infrastructure assets and it is fantastic to see that these are now being handed over to our Operations Team to deliver fully compliant drinking water to our communities.
The last two boil water notices were for users on the Balmoral Tuapeka Rural Water Scheme, including Waitahuna and on the Moa Flat Rural Water Scheme, including Heriot. Notices had been in place since 2023.
To enable the remaining notices to be lifted, the Moa Flat water treatment plant was upgraded earlier this year that included improving the dosing automation and an upgrade to the clarifier, while the new water treatment plant supplying Balmoral Tuapeka became fully operational.
Council Three Waters Group Manager Linda Till says the new Balmoral Tuapeka plant provides a compliant and more reliable water source for people on the former Balmoral 1 and 2, Tuapeka East and West schemes, and to the townships of Waitahuna and shortly, Lawrence.
“We have waited to lift the notices until we were confident that water had passed through rigorous compliance testing across the extensive distribution network, which it now has,” Till says.
With the upgrades and new plants operational old plants at Waitahuna and Evans Flat have been decommissioned. The Lawrence plant will also be decommissioned once the township is connected to the new supply and the network capability is proven.
There are nine rural water schemes in the Clutha District: Balmoral/Tuapeka, Clydevale/Pomahaka, Glenkenich, Moa Flat, North Bruce, Richardson North & South, South Bruce, Waipahi and Wangaloa.
A Community Day will be planned at the Balmoral Tuapeka Rural Water Scheme plant in the coming weeks to allow people to tour the site.
