Chlorine keeps Ohakune water safe

Ruapehu Bulletin, 22 June 1993, Page 1

Chlorine keeps Ohakune water safe

While Ohakune's water has been discoloured at times recently, it is still safe, said council area engineer Don Sattler yesterday. He said because the fine filters in the plant were out of action, high turbidity and water colour caused by bad weather is not being removed. This had led to the ultra-violet light treatment tubes to discolour, leading to staff having to clean the tubes twice in the past month. But while the UV treatment system was down, the chlorine injection system was brought into service, so although discoloured water was reaching the town, it was safe, he said. No one has complained of a chlorine taste in the water, said Mr Sattler. Once the fine filters are fixed, the discolouring would be removed, he said. The fine filters were damaged by hammering in the line caused by a vortex at the raw water intake. The plant now has a protection valve and surge chamber to stop any damage from such problems, but the bad weather is holding up work on fixing the vortex problem, said Mr Sattler. He said the vortex problem meant they could only draw a maximum of 130 cubic metres of water an hour rather than the 150m3 that the plant was designed to cope with. Council engineer Peter Jackson told the Bulletin that repairs to the fine (DE) filters have been held up, waiting for the delivery of the replacement parts from Italy. The community board was told at a previous meeting that the parts would take 10 weeks to arrive. Mr Jackson said the council's chief executive had instructed staff to order the parts, while the council's insurers and the contractor's insurers were negotiating over liability for the damage to the DE filter.