The Reidston community is tired of fighting for quality drinking water from a water treatment plant they spent $50,000 upgrading.
The Reidston Water Supply is a privately owned scheme serving 28 consumer shareholders. It installed a new treatment plant with a government grant of $38,000 that was supposed to meet new drinking water standards.
But the plant has failed to deliver and, since May last year, the community has been fighting the plant provider, Purewater Corporation NZ Ltd, the Ministry of Health, which approved the grant, and Public Health South, which provided technical advice to get the plant rectified.
In the meantime, consumers continue to boil drinking water.
Yesterday, Reidston Water Supply committee secretary Tania MacDonald said the community last month sent questions and met Public Health South, but had not received answers.
Waitaki MP Jacqui Dean and the Labour Party candidate for Waitaki, Barry Monks, are also involved in trying to resolve the impasse.
Mrs Dean last month was confident the problems would soon be resolved and said Ministry of Health officials were committed to fixing the problems.
Mrs MacDonald said Public Health South last month said the ministry would support the community to improve the supply.
The community would enter the Government's new drinking water assistance programme, but it did not meet all the criteria, Mrs MacDonald said.
That left more questions than answers.
After meeting Public Health South, the community was told it was a special case and the criteria did not apply to the Reidston problems.
"We are being left in the dark and can't even get dates on when we will get answers to our questions," she said.
Mr Monks had requested information under the Local Government Official Information and Public Meetings Act, on behalf of the community, but had not received it.
That information was key to determining who in the ministry approved the first treatment plant that was not up to the drinking water standard.
"The community is tired of fighting and just want a water treatment plant that works and is up to the New Zealand drinking water standards," Mrs MacDonald said.
