Waimate residents were told yesterday to stop drinking the local water. File photo. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
The Waimate District mayor says he is disappointed rising nitrate levels in the water supply prompted a 'do not drink' notice on Monday.
Water services authority Taumata Arowai was advised by the council that levels in the source water for its Lower Waihao rural supply were above the maximum acceptable value.
High nitrate levels posed an immediate risk to some people's health, particularly pregnant women and babies.
Mayor Craig Rowley told RNZ it was not known when nitrate levels will come down.
"We've just got to basically work through the system as best we can and support our residents down that way with fresh water that we've got at tanks at a couple of locations down there, so they're able to get fresh drinking water," he said.
Rowley said authorities were working as fast as they could to find the best, most cost-effective solution to the issue.
"This is not an issue of our doing, it's in relation to farming activity within that area," he said.
"In saying that, it's also not the farmers fault because they've been doing what they've been allowed to do, so we've just got to work through it and make sure we come up with a long term, cost-effective, suitable solution for it."
Taumata Arowai head of operations Steve Taylor said alternate safe water was available.
"The council has made alternate safe water available to anybody in this area, there's a number of locations that that water can be found," he said.
"Details of that are available on the council website, so we encourage everybody to look into that."
Taylor said water treatment processes were not able to fully remove nitrates from the drinking water.
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