Source: Choose Clean Water – Tom Kay
Stats NZ’s latest groundwater reporting shows New Zealanders are already at risk from contaminated drinking water sources and highlights the threat to the public should the Government continue with its proposals to weaken policy that protects freshwater, says campaign group Choose Clean Water.
“The Government is consulting on plans to remove the prioritisation of the health of waterways and protection of drinking water sources in current freshwater policy and instead change it to give power to commercial polluters of freshwater.
“Given the state of our groundwater, where many of our communities draw their drinking water from, this Government proposal will inevitably increase the health risks to people. It’s unbelievably irresponsible.” says Choose Clean Water spokesperson Tom Kay.
The new Stats NZ groundwater quality reporting presents monitoring data for groundwater sites across the country between 2019 and 2024. It shows the Maximum Allowable Values for New Zealand drinking water were exceeded at least once between April 2019 and March 2024 at 45.1 percent of sites (450 of 998) for E. coli and 12.4 percent of sites (146 of 1173) for nitrate.
Almost half of the monitoring sites show likely or very likely increasing tr
