Upgrade Work at Taumarunui Water Treatment Plant

Ruapehu District Council (RDC) has started replacing the filter media at the Taumarunui Water Treatment Plant (TWTP) following a period of extensive testing over the last six months.

RDC Environment Manager, Anne Marie Westcott, said that people shouldn’t be alarmed if they see a range of different types of trucks and cranes and other vehicles outside the TWTP while this work is being undertaken.

“Replacing the filter media is not an insignificant undertaking and requires the movement of tonnes of material including different grades of filter sand.”

“This of course will require a range of different heavy equipment to get the job done.”

“The operation of the TWTP will not be affected by this work and so the public do not need to worry about the township’s water supply being affected.”

Ms Westcott said that following the failure of the end stage filters at the plant earlier this year that required an extended boil water notice to be implemented council and our contractor Veoila Water began testing new filter material, carbon and a new polymer which is used to bind with suspended particles in the water during the filtration process.

“One of the major challenges of producing quality drinking water from rivers is that they are full of suspended particles that are the cause of turbidity and some of the taste.”

“The level of turbidity in the Whanganui River is always changing and varies greatly depending on the time of the year, the weather, river flow, run-off and other factors.”

“We have been testing the new filter material and polymer over a period of time so that we can have confidence that we will be able to produce better quality water over a wide range of river conditions.”

“The test results have been very promising but will be on-going,” she said.

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