Madeleine Ross-Morley. Photo: RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
An early childhood centre was planning to send its children home if the presence of lead was confirmed in a Horowhenua town's water supply.
While council officials on Wednesday issued a notice to Tokomaru residents to stop drinking water from the town supply due to elevated levels of lead, Tokomaru Early Childhood Centre manager Madeleine Ross-Morley said she was taking no chances with the health of its children.
"These are our little people and lead can really affect their brain, developmentally, and their organs, so definitely it does concern me for sure.
"I'm probably a little bit extreme but we have been using bottled water to wash hands, or hand sanitiser."
If the situation was not resolved quickly, Ross-Morley said she might have to keep the centre's 20 children away.
"I've been in touch with the Ministry of Education this morning. At the moment we're safe to stay open, but if it's an ongoing issue we might need to look at doing an emergency closure."
She said drinking water on Wednesday was coming from bottles, including some dropped off by the council - although the centre needed more than what it was given.
Earlier it had dipped into its emergency supplies.
Mel Ryan. Photo: RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
Next door at Tokomaru School, principal Mel Ryan said its 81 pupils came to class armed with bottled water or drinking water from a tank parked at the town's RSA on Tuesday night.
"We've been in touch with the Horowhenua District Council and at the moment our water fountains are out of commission.
"We've turned those off this morning and the council are bringing bottled water to our school, and they're also putting a water tank at the hall car park."
That tanker arrived shortly before lunch, replacing the one at the RSA.
Like everyone else, Ryan was waiting to hear what will happen next.
"We've been told that the water is safe to bathe and wash in etc. If it was an issue with hand washing or anything like that then we would have to look at closing."
There are 220 connections, including 160 homes, hooked into the affected water supply.
The local shop was doing a roaring trade in drinks, and Marilyn Laing stopped in to get two bottles of water and one of sugar-free lemonade.
The council on Tuesday evening published media releases and notices online, but Laing was not aware of the situation until Wednesday, drinking tap water and cleaning her teeth in the morning.
"My partner said, 'Oh it's just rubbish, don't worry about it.' But I'm not like that," she said.
"In this day and age you don't expect to be out of water, do you?"
Anton Moore. Photo: RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
Anton Moore said his neighbour did not know what was going on either.
"Last evening I went over to him with a bottle of water, walked inside, left a note to the effect of what had happened.
"He didn't see that note until he got up this morning, thus he drank the [tap] water."
Christine Toms said she was worried about the possibility of lead poisoning, and thought the council should have done more last night, such as going door to door to alert people then.
"The government's talking about upgrading drinking water supplies. They are so right.
"It never should have happened and this should not be happening now.
"It's not the fact that the lead has got into the water by some unknown circumstance, but the fact is they did nothing about it. They did not let us know."
RNZ saw council workers going door to door on Wednesday, and notes were left in the letter boxes of people not home.
A water tanker parked at the local hall. Photo: RNZ / Jimmy Ellingham
Toms received one of those and was not impressed with its brevity, or that it did not say who it was from.
Council chief executive Monique Davidson said it made public test results from the reservoir showing non-compliant levels of lead shortly after they were received on Tuesday.
"As of this morning we've issued a preliminary stop-drinking-water notice. That's a precautionary step," she said.
About 4.30pm on Wednesday, the council confirmed the do-not-drink water notice was still in place.
However, testing on Wednesday morning had eliminated the Tokomaru River as the source of contamination.
The council said its reticulation network, which was the source of its original concerns, had come back as clear and within compliant levels.
A tap at the water treatment plant was still showing non-compliant levels of lead, but the tap was used only for testing and was not part of the wider water network.
"We of course need to do further work to confirm this, however, this is positive news and can provide some reassurance to community on the safety of their drinking water," Davidson said.
"To be clear, the tests today have confirmed the water supplies to the network are within compliant levels of lead."
A test in July after upgrade work showed the possibility of contamination, however, it could have been a sampling error so more tests were done.
The council's advice this morning said boiling the town's water would have no effect, but it was safe for washing and bathing.