Drinking Water
Drinking water is an essential part of our everyday life. Outbreaks of waterborne diseases are a common occurrence, sometimes leading to serious complications and even fatalities.
Toi Te Ora Public Health Service is responsible for auditing the performance and management of public water supplies and for providing assistance and advice to small supplies through the Ministry of Health’s Technical Assistance Programme (TAP).
What to look for
Contaminated drinking water
Contaminated drinking water is water that has become mixed with a poison or another material that may—if there is enough of it—be dangerous to those who drink or use it.
Drinking water that has come from rain, spring, bore, river or stream supply could potentially be contaminated by organic or faecal run-off from the surrounding environment.
Water quality from rainfall can be improved if the system is well maintained and steps are taken to protect the supply from contamination during collection and storage.
Underground supplies (wells, bores and springs) vary in quality although protection at the source will often reduce contamination levels. The degree of contamination in rivers and streams can vary but will undoubtedly increase after periods of rainfall.
How to make sure your supply is safe
Short term or emergency measures
- Use suitable point of use filters
- Use evaporation systems
- Use good quality water for drinking, hygiene and food preparation other water can be used for other purposes
- Treatment by boiling (minimum of three minutes) or using chlorine (bleach)
- Replacement of stored water with water from a potable source
- Cleaning and maintenance of the water supply system (general practice).
Long term measures
- Protection of the water source
- Implement a maintenance programme to reduce the risk of contamination
- Change to another source that is potable
- Implement an appropriate monitoring programme.
Check out the resources below
- Secure Groundwater, bores and wells for safe household water
- Water Collection Tanks
- Household Water Supplies
- Or for more information visit the Ministry of Health website here
Sampling and analysis
All supplies should undertake some monitoring to ensure that the treatment is working and no contamination of the supply is occurring prior to reaching the consumer.
The level of assurance gained from monitoring is related to the number of samples that are taken over a monitoring period, so low sample numbers gives a low level of assurance.
The main consideration for monitoring is for microbiological determinants because illness is more likely to be dramatic and widespread due to microbiological contamination. Nonetheless the supplier should also know whether there are chemicals of concern in the supply but generally this may be determined by one-off sampling. Check that the laboratory you use is recognised by the Ministry of Health for the analysis they are going to do.
- Ministry of Health Accredited Laboratories for Drinking Water Analysis
- Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand
Single building supplies
For information about the provision of safe drinking water supplied to privately owned or single buildings, contact your local council as it is a matter relating to the Building Act.
Contact us for advice and information on how to protect the water supply from contamination and suitable treatment options
Community supplies
Community drinking water supplies are those that serve 25 or more people for more than 60 days a year. This could include schools, permanent camp sites and marae.
Each community drinking water supply is sampled by Toi Te Ora’s protection officers at least four times a year and analysed for compliance with the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand
Drinking water assessors are responsible for reviewing annually each small community drinking water supply. Each supply is reviewed for chemical and microbiological compliance with the Drinking Water Standards for New Zealand.
- Read how well your community drinking water complies
- The health risk status of all community drinking water supplies
If a drinking water supply is not listed please contact us
Fluoridation
Fluoridated water is supplied to 15% of the Bay of Plenty districts, in Whakatane, Taupo and Turangi.
Tooth decay is a chronic, multifactorial, bacterial disease that we don’t become immune to. It results in the progressive destruction of tooth tissue and can only be treated with surgical intervention.
Studies show that the proportion of older people who experience decay of the root surfaces of their teeth, and the average number of root surfaces affected, is significantly lower in fluoridated areas.
Drinking water assistance programme
Many small rural New Zealand communities don’t have access to safe drinking water and it’s these communities Toi Te Ora Public Health Service would like to help.
The Drinking Water Assistance Programme, which has been running since 2005, assists small drinking-water supplies to ensure safe water for their communities.
The initiative has two major components, TAP and CAP:
TAP, the Technical Assistance Programme, trains and assists communities to improve their own supplies.
CAP, the Capital Assistance Programme, will help fund improvements where TAP participation has shown that local resourcing is inadequate for a good solution.
Contact us for more information
