Source: Radio New Zealand
The boil water notice will not be lifted until there are at least three days of good results, the council says. RNZ/Rebekah Parsons-King
Friends are delivering bottled water to a Christchurch mother whose immunocompromised daughter relies on sterile medical equipment for feeding, with 14,000 households in the city’s east still under a boil water notice.
Kalah Blair’s 11-year-old daughter Maia has a number of medical issues and disabilities, including severe autism and the rare genetic disorder Sotos syndrome.
A public health alert was issued on Saturday afternoon for thousands of people in New Brighton, Burwood, Wainoni, Aranui and Southshore after routine testing discovered total coliforms in the Rawhiti water zone.
The alert said all water, including filtered water, must be continuously boiled for at least one minute, prompting a run on bottled water at supermarkets.
Blair said Maia was tube-fed so relied on clean water to protect her health.
“She’s on her medical pump for five hours per day and we have to do 200-mill flushes with every feed, so that’s nearly two litres of water per day, just for her feeding. Then I’ve got to make up some of her medication with water, then I have to sterilise all of her syringes and other medical equipment,” she told Morning Report.
“It’s a very full-on thing to do, but when you’re having to use bottled water and then boil that to sterilise things, it makes life so much harder.”
Blair was first alerted to the problem on Saturday when she received the emergency mobile alert.
“It was like, ‘oh my god I need to get bottled water’ and go through and tip out all of her drink bottles,” she said.
While Blair could boil water, she did not want to take any risks with Maia.
“A cold isn’t just a cold, it can literally put her in hospital for days. We just have to be super careful with her,” she said.
A friend sent bottles of water via Uber on Saturday, while another friend and Christchurch East Labour MP Reuben Davidson brought water on Sunday.
On Monday morning, Blair had not heard directly from any council staff and was calling for a register of vulnerable people who could be contacted by the council in a health crisis.
“If something like this happens again, the council can contact us and say, ‘hey look, this is the situation, this is how long we think it’s going to last, is there any support we can give you? Or point us in the direction of help and support. It’s not just Maia, there are other people in this community who are medically fragile or disabled as well,” she said.
On Sunday, the council said the boil water notice would not be lifted until there were at least three days of good results.
“Results from sampling in the wider Rawhiti zone are looking good. However, as we have had a further positive result in the same location, the boil water notice is still in place,” the council said.
“The notice will then be lifted once we can provide confidence to Tauamata Arowai that the water is safe to drink. Part of this assessment will be ensuring we also have at least three days of good results.”
A community drinking water station was open in Keyes Road in New Brighton for people to fill containers with safe drinking water while staff and contractors continued to investigate the source of the contamination.
Total coliforms are a broad category of bacteria that can be found in faeces, but also live in the environment, including in soil and plants.
They do not generally pose a direct health risk, but the presence of total coliforms indicated bacteria were present and that treatment has not been effective or that treated water was vulnerable to contamination, according to water regulator Taumata Arowai.
The council said the Ministry of Education had been in touch with early childhood centres and schools to ensure they remained open.
“They have a good plan in place to manage the situation and the council will provide support to the ministry where we can. If parents have questions, they are encouraged to contact their respective schools and centres directly,” the council said.
People in the affected suburbs were already struggling with intensifying odour from the city’s fire-damaged wastewater treatment plant in Bromley in recent weeks.
Christchurch City Council and Health New Zealand have been contacted for comment.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
