Spring Creek Resident Fears Drinking Water Contamination

Tuesday, 1 July 2025, 6:05 pm
Article: Kira Carrington - Local Democracy Reporter

When the residents of Spring Creek looked outside their homes, the dirty stains on the footpath serve as a reminder that, just a few days ago, it was all underwater.

Hathaway St resident Ness Beck said she was glad to be back in her home in time for the school holidays, but the main feeling in the community was frustration.

“I was very lucky [our house] didn’t get flooded,” she said.

“[But] no-one has seen the road that flooded.”

Other residents weren’t as fortunate. Beck described the flooding at one neighbour’s house as “flowing like a river”.

“[Even] houses down Ferry Rd out of the evacuation zone got flooded.”

Beck said her property’s water supply was potentially contaminated, which was a major concern as she was immunocompromised.

The Marlborough District Council had not offered to cover the cost of contamination testing, she said.

“If I want to test my water [for E coli], it’s $81 at the local testing station.

“We have to boil our water for at least the next week. If I got sick I’d be hospitalised.”

The flooding also interrupted her daughter Imogen’s 16th birthday celebrations, which had to be postponed till Thursday.

But Imogen described her birthday as “surprisingly good”, saying she spent the day watching movies with her family.

Beck thought the council was too hasty in calling off the evacuation order, saying no thought had been given as to whether residents could even access their properties.

“They told us to come home, and sat in their office and checked the river levels. I couldn’t even enter my driveway,” she said, referring to the surface flooding that submerged most of the street.

Beck said the water was so high she couldn’t see her agapanthus plants.

“Don’t say ‘Yeah, it’s all clear to come home’ if it’s that flooded.”

While Beck acknowledged that the flood did not originate from the Wairau River’s stopbank, she said the council should have done more to prevent surface flooding originating from a nearby paddock.

“That field always gets flooded.”

A sandbag wall was erected beside the paddock on Saturday, but Beck said it should have been done sooner.

“That should have been done Thursday night. It shouldn’t have flooded at all.”

If another flood occurred, Beck said she wouldn’t be evacuating. “I want to make sure my property is OK.”

Ferry Rd resident Bernadette Munro said she thought the problem wasn’t the stopbank, but the overwhelmed storm drainage system.

“It’s not the river; it’s the drainage. [The drain] couldn’t cope with it,” she said, pointing to the drain in the middle of her driveway.

Munro, who spent Friday night at a nearby friend’s house, said her whole driveway ended up flooded, and she had to borrow a water pump from a neighbour to get the water out.

“It was just a lake. Thankfully the garage was OK.”

Munro said she was luckier than most.

“Someone down on Hathaway, their granny flat got flooded. They had tenants in there, and now they’ve had to move out,” she said.

“[And] there’s supposed to be the same amount of rain this weekend.”

Council chief executive John Boswell said the council was going to look at Spring Creek’s stormwater system, but it could take some time.

“The surface flooding was as a result of stormwater coming in across the paddock to the west of the Spring Creek settlement,” he said.

“We are going to have a look at what we can do with respect to the stormwater outlet immediately to the west and the flood protection system associated with it.

“But that’s not going to be a quick fix.”

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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