Sickness, boiled water and another hit for Queenstown businesses: the unacceptable costs of unprotected water
The buck stops with the council, says a recovering René Thierry. “We’re paying for clean water with our rates and not getting it.” Thousands of New Zealanders are drinking water at risk of carrying the same parasite that is causing sickness and disrupting business in Queenstown. Renée Ayres and René Thierry with children Harvie, now 5, and Rome, 1, had all become sick with a gastro bug in September, and Gabrielle Coppola, who lives in a different part of town, also became sick with symptoms this time were unfamiliar. Despite testing, the number of confirmed cryptosporidium cases appeared to have steadied in the town, at 61 on Thursday, but secondary infections could continue for months. Despite legislation requiring protozoa barriers to be in place in New Zealand since 2014, the water supply drawn from the apparently pristine Lake Wakatipu and feeding central Queenstown did not have one. Despite this, the Queenstown Lakes District Council quickly imposed a boil water notice and the boil water order was lifted.
نشرت : منذ عامين بواسطة Debbie Jamieson في Business Health
Renée Ayres and René Thierry with children Harvie, now 5, and Rome, 1, had all become sick with a gastro bug in Queenstown in September.
Thousands of New Zealanders are drinking water at risk of carrying the same parasite that is causing sickness and disrupting business in Queenstown. DEBBIE JAMIESON reports.
It was not long after helicopter pilot René Thierry became sick with stomach cramps, and the kind of smelly and watery diarrhoea that no one likes to talk about, that his wife and two children followed.
“When we were all sick it was really hard,” he said.
“We were up all night because the baby wasn’t sleeping, and then changing his nappy 30 times a day, in between being stuck on the toilet.”
It was the beginning of September, and the early signs of the water-borne parasite cryptosporidium were appearing in Queenstown.
There were rumours and social media discussions of a bug doing the rounds, but no one had yet connected the dots.
“The worst part was that we didn't know it was the water, so we were just hydrating with the tap water which was probably making it worse,” Thierry said.
Around the same time, Gabrielle Coppola, who lives in a different part of town, also became sick.
She had lived with chronic pain but her symptoms this time were unfamiliar. She couldn’t eat, drinking caused pain, she couldn’t get out of bed, and it hurt when she breathed.
”I became super dehydrated and diarrhoea became a secondary symptom because there was nothing to come out.”
She made her own decision to start boiling water, saw a doctor, and drastically changed her diet.
“It took some time for the symptoms to calm down, and it was three weeks before I did a solid poo again.”
A faecal sample later put her among the first wave of confirmed cryptosporidium cases in Queenstown.
“I was really angry at the council. They let this happen. They supply our water. And I was pretty annoyed that this has to come from faecal contamination, so we’re drinking poo water.”
Cryptosporidium was a nasty parasite lurking in untreated drinking water, ready to give unsuspecting recipients an extremely unpleasant and potentially dangerous dose of diarrhoea, stomach cramps and vomiting.
It came from human sources, such as untreated sewage, and animal sources, such as wild and farmed animals.
Drinking water providers installed barriers to neutralise or eliminate protozoa such as cryptosporidium and giardia. The barrier was usually either UV equipment or a fine mesh.
Despite legislation requiring protozoa barriers to be in place in New Zealand since 2014, the water supply drawn from the apparently pristine Lake Wakatipu and feeding central Queenstown did not have one.
The outbreak was confirmed by September 18 and the Queenstown Lakes District Council quickly imposed a boil water notice in the town.
It was then slapped with a compliance order requiring it to upgrade the water supply by national water regulator Taumata Arowai and scrambled to get a plan and the necessary equipment in place.
Ongoing testing had failed to reveal a source of the outbreak, but the water supply was considered the most likely.
The number of confirmed cryptosporidium cases appeared to have steadied in the town, at 61 on Thursday, but secondary infections could continue for months.
The council predicted it could be December before a protozoa barrier was in place and the boil water notice was lifted.
Taumata Arowai had been assessing water supplies across the country to ensure they had protozoa barriers in place, prior to the Queenstown outbreak.
On Thursday the agency announced it had identified 84 drinking water supplies that did not have a protozoa barrier in place, affecting more than 310,000 New Zealanders.
About 295,000 of those are in the South Island – 170,000 in Christchurch, followed by areas in Queenstown, Wānaka, Rangiora, Greymouth, Gore, Cromwell, Pegasus, and Motueka.
It put the 27 councils involved on notice to have a plan and funds locked in to fix their drinking water supplies by June next year.
Putting the barriers in place could cost anywhere from tens of thousands of dollars to millions, and it was money the councils would have to find.
Taumata Arowai regulatory head Steve Taylor said the timeline would fit the next annual budgeting cycle for councils.
If the councils did not comply, there would be consequences, he said.
“We are considering what regulatory action is required should suppliers not respond satisfactorily within the timelines set out in our letter.”
It was rare for someone to die from cryptosporidium, but the Queenstown experience was not acceptable, he said.
“It’s not acceptable that people can get sick from their drinking water supply and end up going to hospital and then having to boil their water for long periods. And it’s also very costly for businesses.”
The owner of Morrisons Irish Pub and Hospitality NZ Central Otago president Adam Nagy knew that cost all too well.
Hundreds of restaurants, bars and cafés were carrying water from council water tankers to their businesses, often employing an extra staff member to boil water, and installing so many UV filters it was near impossible to find a plumber in town, he said.
The industry had a tough few years with Covid-19 closures and a subsequent worker shortage.
Now it faced additional costs as well as more staff sickness, with hospitality staff anecdotally among some of the most affected.
“There’s quite a close community of hospo staff in Queenstown,” Nagy said.
“You’re either living together or you’re going out together or you’re sharing space together and they’re saying now that a lot of the cases are secondary cases.”
He was frustrated with a lack of communication from the council and the strong message that Queenstown was having water problems, but not that it was still open and operating.
Tap water was not safe to drink in lots of international cities, such as Los Angeles and Mumbai, he said.
“People buy bottled water and get on with their lives. They don’t advertise that fact. For us highlighting it, I think has been the most detrimental thing.”
The town had been a little quieter than he expected for the school holidays but whether that was due to a quieter ski season with less snow than expected, or concerns about the water, was hard to know, he said.
Queenstown Lakes Mayor Glen Lewers accepted the criticism of the messaging and said it was something the council would review.
He said he understood the anger of those who had been unwell and said new health advice was that it could take months for those infected to stop shedding cysts that spread the disease, reinforcing the requirement for strict hygiene practices.
“This thing is a tough little critter to find, and a tough critter to get rid of,” he said.
And while the source had not been confirmed, Stuff understood that testing had revealed the strain of cryptosporidium was related to human faeces.
There had been several documented incidents of sewage leaking into Lake Wakatipu around Queenstown, including one from Hanley’s Farm in September, from Horne Creek in August.
There was a major sewage overflow in 2020 and the council was prosecuted and received infringement notices for earlier incidents.
Of course, putting the protozoa barrier in place in 2014 would have prevented the cryptosporidium entering the water.
Lewers said the delay was due to the complexity of the site, especially as it was prone to algae.
“There was this internal debate about whether we get UV or use a membrane filter,” he said.
Now it was putting UV equipment in as a temporary fix – the council had sourced all the equipment available in New Zealand and had some coming from Canada.
A membrane barrier, which was a more suitable long-term solution, was already under construction overseas.
The original anticipated budget of $30 million had now decreased to about one-third of that, but it would still have an impact on rates next year, he said.
“This year it was [an average rates increase of] 14%. Hopefully it won’t be that high next year but it won’t be single figures,” he said.
That was cold comfort to René Thierry. His mother was visiting from Australia when she also became unwell and a month after the original infection, his 1-year-old son was still suffering.
“At the worst, he was eating three peas for dinner and lost quite a bit of weight. Now he’s got his appetite back, but every few days he has diarrhoea again.”
The buck stopped with the council, he said.
“We’re paying for clean water with our rates and not getting it.”