The frustration of rust-coloured drinking and washing water is about to end when the water supply from the Palamino Rd bore is piped into the homes of Cape Coast residents, hopefully by the second week in November.

The new Haumoana, Te Awanga, Parkhill treatment facility distributing water from the new bore is expected to go live in the second week of November after the official blessing at this past weekend (17 October).

The new facility is the first of eight small community drinking supply upgrades for Hastings to be completed. The blessing was conducted by Matahiwi marae kaumatua Tom Mulligan and Ratana minister Brown Wiki, with mayor Sandra Hazlehurst confirming that safe drinking water is council’s number one priority.
The 73 metre deep Parkhill bore feeds water into a new treatment plant on the corner of Palomino Rd and Parkhill Rd, where it is disinfected using ultra-violet light, before being chlorinated and stored in the 600,000 litre tank, for distribution throughout the 25 kilometres of pipe to homes.

That quality of the water will mean much less chlorine needs to be added to keep it safe.

Local councillor Ann Redstone, who has fielded a number of complaints about the quality of the water recently, particularly in Te Awanga, says last year water staff hit a “a particularly bad pocket of water full of metals, mainly manganese which reacts to the (mandatory) chlorine being added.”

Due to the high content of manganese the chlorine dose had to be stronger than usual. “HDC has spent a great deal of time and money sourcing and drilling for good water in Palomino Rd.”

She says the water will be tested over the next couple of weeks and ahead of the full commissioning, the current chlorine dose will be dropped by about a half.

Redstone says the new water “is high quality, has excellent pressure and hasn’t got the iron and manganese content of the current supply.”

She says another issue that is being looked at is over-allocation which has meant the water tables have dropped and the aquifer dried up completely during summer in some places like Bridge Pa.

“Hawke’s Bay Regional is working on pulling back the old consents, mapping the aquifer and re-allocating water in a more sustainable way.”

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