Twizel’s water supply was cut off on Tuesday after a sudden shut-down of the treatment plant, leaving many residents without running water.
By Claire Taylor of Local Democracy Reporting
The shut-down highlighted gaps in the Mackenzie Country town's infrastructure, but a council spokesperson said the team worked quickly to replace the faulty parts.
Dozens of residents commented about water outages on the Twizel Community Facebook page, from about 6pm on Tuesday.
Facebook user Catherine Coull posted about the outage, stating they had attempted to contact Mackenzie water but had no luck.
“I tried to call but the line was busy – clearly plenty of others also trying. The correspondence in the community FB page was really helpful.”
Twizel Community Care Trust vice-chairperson Jacqui De Buyzer posted at 6.30pm about low water pressure on Tussock Bend, prompting her to contact the council after-hours and post updates to the community page.
As the admin of the community page, she told Local Democracy Reporting she often received information from the council to post on the community page.
“I didn’t have anything [from council] so that’s why I sort of took charge and thought I’d reassure people that it was being fixed."
She was told by the council’s after-hours that they had received a number of calls and someone had been dispatched.
Her post at 6:40pm read: “Help on the way, but probably 2 hours before any change to pressure.”
She noted after an hour from her call, the issues were rectified.
Mackenzie District Council’s general manager operations and regulatory services Neil Jorgenson said the Twizel water treatment had shut itself down Tuesday evening and required repairs and replacements.
He said Twizel’s water treatment plant has three parallel trains of UV units, controlled by intensity sensors which are required to be replaced at intervals.
“I believe that this is the first time that they have been replaced since the UV unit was installed,” he said. “The three sensors were replaced yesterday with new ones and then unfortunately all of them faulted during the evening.”
When the sensors fault, the plant automatically shuts down to ensure unmonitored water is not being dispersed into the pipe network.
Jorgensen said the intensity sensors controlling the UV units of the plant will now be replaced one at a time, avoiding future issues.
Jorgenson noted that most water treatment plants have a water reservoir that holds additional treated water in the event water issues arise, something Twizel does not have.
This means any plant failure immediately cuts off Twizel’s water supply, something Jorgensen said could be avoided if Twizel had a treated water reservoir.
A team was dispatched to the water treatment plant yesterday evening, one based in Twizel and the others in Fairlie - an hour away.
Jorgensen said the distance of the district can sometimes impact response times but that the team had worked quickly, removing faulty sensors, reinstalling old sensors, and recommissioning the plant and pipe network.
“This takes awhile (up to 2 hours) as air has to be removed both at the plant and in the pipe network to ensure there are no pressure spikes, which can cause pipe bursts,” he said.
A treated water reservoir would ensure residents aren’t left without water in situations where response teams have to drive large distances across the district.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
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