Boil Water Notice - Blackball Water Supply
Boil Water notice for the Blackball Water Supply commencing 3 May 2023 at 4pm until further notice.
Grey District Council has issued a Boil Water Notice for all consumers on the Blackball Water Supply.
All drinking water should be boiled until further notice. Do this by bringing the water to a boil in your kettle or keep it at a rolling boil in a saucepan for 1 minute.
A conserve water notice is still in place.
Councils ability to extract water from the creek has been reducing over time, resulting in lower than normal raw water storage volumes. Raw water is the untreated water that has been directly extracted and has not yet passed through the treatment plant. While Council has been taking water from the creek, the extraction rate available has not been sufficient to replenish raw water storage volumes.
Given the ongoing rain and stormy weather conditions, water quality within the creek is not within the conditions required of the new drinking water regulations. Specifically, the turbidity levels within the water are higher than normally permitted extraction levels. Because the water being extracted is of poorer quality, Council needed to put in place additional protection measures. This being the boil water notice.
Treatment systems are still operating (ultra violet light and chlorination systems), but given the higher levels of turbidity, may not be as effective.
Staff are working on both temporary and permanent solutions to enable the removal of the current boil water notice. These are;
- Direct extraction from the creek.
- Bringing treated water from the Greater Greymouth Water Supply to Blackball, via tanker. This will limit the amount of creek extraction required to meet demand.
- The design of the new intake pipeline under the creek is complete and pipework is being ordered for installation.
- The installation of the new intake pipework, once it is on hand. This upgrade work will help to reduce the probability of Council needing to issue boil water notices.
Blackball Water Supply consumers will be updated through Council’s website and Facebook page on a frequent basis from today. Updates are expected to occur at a frequency of every two to three days.
Residents should also feel free to contact Council on 769 8611 at any stage to seek further information or detail around the current boil water notice.
