Relief As Rural East Coast School Lifts Water Advisory With New Treatment System

Wednesday, 16 July 2025, 4:48 pm
Article: Zita Campbell - Local Democracy Reporter

A Te Araroa school can finally provide clean tap water to its students after a year of “horrendous worry” because of E. coli.

“Having clear, beautiful drinking water was like going from a third-world system to the 21st century – at the turn of the tap,” Te Waha o Rerekohu Area School principal Lynn Burrell says.

Te Waha o Rerekohu Area School, on the East Coast, has gone from having the most E. coli notifications in 2024 to having drinkable water thanks to an upgrade to the school’s self-supply water system.

It meant the remote, rural school was able to lift its long-term “do not drink” advisory.

Burrell said they still celebrated when a water test came back as “all clear”, after the stress of not having drinkable water for a year.

The upgrade freed her of “quite a horrendous worry”, she said.

“At the end of the day, it’s the principal that must keep everyone safe, and it weighed heavily on me.

“Every single water test that’s been done since the new system has been put in has been ‘all clear’ – and we are still celebrating,” she said.

About 19% of New Zealand schools self-supply their drinking water, with many located in rural or remote areas, according to water regulator Taumata Arowai’s recently released Drinking Water Regulation Report 2024.

The school had its last E. coli exceedance notification in August 2024, after receiving 11 notifications, the report said.

“It was very positive not to have to tell every single visitor ‘please do not drink the water’ or tell school groups, ‘you must bring your own water bottles’,” Burrell said of the upgrade.

The Ministry of Education reimbursed the school for the costs of bottled drinking water.

Since the upgrade, the caretaker and support staff were pleased not to be lugging bottled water in and out of school, as they are “not light”, said Burrell.

“And suddenly the principal can focus on teaching and learning and not have this long-term concern that visitors, students and staff would inadvertently drink the tap water.”

The school, which presently educates 74 students from new entrants to Year 13, had the national water regulator Taumata Arowai visit the school twice last year.

According to the authority’s report released last month, the risk to drinking water quality at many self-supplied schools is extremely high, demonstrated by high incidences of water contamination.

Last year, 59% of laboratory notifications of E. coli were about self-supplied schools, which affected 71 different school supplies, the report says.

During the authority’s visits to the school, its staff viewed the water treatment system and guided the school’s caretaker, who was also the plant operator.

The authority remained in “constant contact” with the school’s principal throughout 2024 and provided status updates at monthly meetings with the Ministry of Education, according to the report.

“With the support of the ministry, the school upgraded its treatment plant in late 2024.

“As a result of this upgrade, the school was able to lift its long-term ‘do not drink’ advisory,” the report says.

The Ministry of Education’s head of property, Sam Fowler, said E. coli detections were likely a result of contamination of the rainwater collected from the school roofs or through soil contamination because of leaking pipe networks.

“The school collects rainwater from various school building roofs and stores this in seven tanks of 25sq m capacity, providing a total of 175sq m of storage across the site,” he said.

Fowler said the 11 notifications came from eight incidents. After each incident, the school had undertaken servicing and maintenance of its treatment system, including chlorine dosing of its storage tanks.

“Unfortunately, maintenance alone was unable to address the recurring contamination issue.”

The water infrastructure upgrade included new connections between various rainwater capture storage tanks across the school, and improvements to the treatment system, including a new UV disinfection unit and residual chlorine disinfection equipment, plus treated water storage, Fowler said.

A dedicated Water Services team within the ministry provides ongoing support to schools for maintenance, regular water quality testing, and compliance reporting, he said.

“This work is part of a broader programme aimed at upgrading all schools that do not currently meet national drinking water standards, with priority given to those with the most urgent needs.”

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

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