Residents of a remote coastal town that lost its water supply in the middle of the holiday break say the outage is the result of inaction from their local authority.
But the Tararua District Council is asking locals to be patient and says staff are working hard on the ground to resolve Ākitio’s water issues.
Located on the east coast of Tararua, the coastal village was without water for around three days after an outage occurred in its supply on New Year’s Day.
The council bought in water tankers, portable toilets and bottled water to assist both locals and holidaymakers.
An outage also occurred on the Saturday prior to New Year’s Day, and this was fixed by the council.
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The Tararua District Council bought in a water tanker, portable toilets and bottled water to help people get through.
But the spring-fed tanks were unable to refill with the influx of visitors and by Monday water had run out.
An advisory on the council’s Facebook page at 6.30pm that night told residents there had been an “outage” to the supply. At 8.55pm, it said everything was operating normally, but high water use meant tanks were unable to refill.
A council spokesperson said a number of staff were on site investigating the issue and more bottled water was due to be delivered to the town. This would be available at the Sea View Takeaway and Camp Store.
“Demand is still outstripping supply as we are attempting to restock the tanks.”
A “water shutdown” would be in place from 9pm Friday until 7am Saturday to allow tanks time to refill.
Ākitio Campground owner Warren Cox said Monday’s social media post was the first communication he had about the outage.
The campground had lost pressure in its water system during the day, so he already knew something had happened.
But Cox said the post only went up hours later, and he could not understand why the council hadn’t communicated more.
“We are often the first port of call for people out here. If there are any issues, they ring the shop to find out what is going on.”
The loss of water impacted his ability to run the nearby shop they owned, as well as the campground.
“If it had of gone on any longer I would have had to close the campground…we had no water at all at the shop.”
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There are still many beachgoers in Ākitio, including Hutch Smith, 2, who is enjoying his first visit to the settlement.
Cox closed the laundry room, and found two water storage tanks they had on site were low.
“This means there must have been something happening for a while before we noticed…the tanks usually do us for about two days.”
A resident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Ākitio’s water issues were ongoing, and a leak was uncovered about six months ago and reported to the council.
He said this was fixed but leaking again “within a week”.
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A total outdoor water ban is in place at Ākitio.
The town had been surviving on “winter water” going into the holiday season and only two of six tanks that supplied the village were turned on.
“These should have been switched on in December…I don’t think the council are doing their job.”
He said there was also an outage on Christmas Day and while the tanks would normally refill and recover at night, they weren’t able to do so.
“This is because they [the council] haven’t done the maintenance required.
“There is a sensor saying the tanks are full…they take about 180,000L but were only getting about 60,000L.
“They are saying it’s a supply issue, but it’s not, it’s not set up how it should be.”
Locals had offered to take over the care and maintenance of the town’s water supply, but this had been refused, he said.
“Eighteen months ago they were told by residents this was going to happen.”
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The influx of holidaymakers means water tanks are struggling to refill.
The council said air was trapped in the system, which had affected water getting into the treatment tanks causing the “original” issue.
“With summer visitors added to the resident population, water demand was high and the tanks could not recover quickly.
“Our focus now is on ensuring the treated water tanks recover fully and daily physical monitoring of the tanks is taking place.”
Water issues in the town have been on the council’s radar for some time.
In 2022, a report presented by council infrastructure group manager Chris Chapman said Ākitio’s water and sewerage systems would fail if excessive demand was placed on them.
The Ākitio Ratepayers Association had also been vocal about the need for better water and sewerage systems and the issues had been discussed at its AGMs held every year on January 2.
