Naseby residents are frustrated and angry at what they deem the Central Otago District Council’s (CODC) failure to deliver reliable fresh water to the town. 

The town’s water supply was turned off over the weekend, as heavy rain caused havoc across the region. 

Naseby’s water tanks, which fill with fresh water for the town drawn from the water race, ran empty as the filtration system was overwhelmed by dirty flood water. 

Residents did not have running water at home to flush toilets, shower, drink or cook. 

Portaloo toilets are installed in Naseby for those who do not have running water, as well as a water truck. 

It is understood taps in Naseby are working, but the water is brown and muddied. 

Portaloos and a water truck are now stationed in Naseby until the situation is resolved. Photo courtesy CODC.

One local who spoke to The Central App anonymously, says Council initially denied there was any problem. 

Last year, the water tanks in Naseby ran dry. Over the last year there has been work put into the infrastructure but the problem has now repeated. 

It is alleged the Council did not fill the drinking water tanks, which inevitably ran dry once the town was filled with holiday makers, and the heavy rain event muddied the water source. 

She asked whether this was New Zealand in 2021, or 1821. 

Royal Hotel owner Adrian Hood says the water situation is a hard blow for struggling businesses. 

“Quite an unfortunate start to the new year given everything we went through last year. 

“If the wet weather wasn’t bad enough the water situation has created doubt for Naseby as a holiday destination. 

“Two years in a row this has happened. People are saying we are second-class citizens compared to Clyde, Alex, and Cromwell etc. 

“Someone has dropped the ball and it’s unfortunate that once again we are asking “why”. 

“Lots of additional pressure on small businesses in the regions with staffing and costs, the last thing we needed was all our holiday makers leaving town and future bookings cancelled.” 

Pub owner Adrian Hood says the people of Naseby feel like second-class citizens because of unreliable running water to the town. Photo The Central App. 

Central Otago District Council Infrastructure Services Executive Manager Julie Muir says the tanks “have been operating at full since Christmas, up to 1pm on 1 January”.

“At this time the turbidity (sediment) of the water coming into the plant began to cause the plant to stop operating and filling the tanks.  

“At this point the tanks were 82% full, which is what is expected during the day when people are using water.  

“The tank level had dropped to 30% by 8am on 2 January and a conserve water notice was issued. 

“Demand for water continued, and the tanks were emptied by 6am on 3 January.  

“The turbidity of the water at this point was still too high to enable the plant to function, so a bypass was put in place to enable untreated water to be used to refill the tanks.  

“Water was re-entering the tanks at 3.30pm, and by 9pm on the 3rd January the tanks were sufficiently filled to enable the water to be turned back on.

“The population of Naseby is typically around 120, and swells to 3000-4000 people over the New Year period.  

“This places extreme pressure on the system, and if a secondary event occurs at this time then the system has insufficient redundancy within it to cope.  

“Additional funding of $350,000 has been allocated to put further tanks in Naseby within the next 10 months, from government funding provided to Council for water and wastewater improvements.

“One of the reasons this occurred last year was that water was taken to run a water slide for the Naseby Fun Day, at the same time as heavy demand and a fault occurring on the plant which required it to be taken offline for a period for repairs.  

“This year a significant weather event has occurred which is beyond the control of the Council.

“Prior to 2015, water supplies within each town were funded by the ratepayers within those towns.  

“In small towns like Naseby, Patearoa, and Omakau the costs of undertaking expensive upgrades is spread across few properties.  

“As a consequence these smaller supplies have limited redundancy in them to withstand weather events or plant failures, and meet peak demand.  

“In 2015 Council moved to a district rating system for water, which has enabled upgrades to the supplies in these smaller towns to progress.   

“This work has been initially focussed on meeting the New Zealand Drinking Water Standards for day to day use, and within the next 12 months will shift to improving resilience.

Julie says there are strict legal requirements that Council is required to follow which determine when boil water notices are required to be put in place.  

“These ensure that the risks to public health when water quality cannot be guaranteed are mitigated.  

“The placement of a boil water notice does not necessarily mean that the water is contaminated, it means that it cannot be treated to the required level to guarantee that it is safe.” (continue reading below)

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Owners of Naseby Holiday Park, Beth and Mike Connell, say the event has left businesses lurching after an already difficult 2020. 

Beth says the Christmas holiday period was desperately needed by locals to recover from the likes of the 2020 COVID lockdown. 

At Christmas and New Year’s Eve, the town of Naseby swells from approximately 100 full-time residents to about 3,000. 

Beth and Mike say the town emptied almost as soon as the water tanks did. 

“As soon as we got that heavy rain, the population was gone,” Beth says. 

“We had 100 percent occupancy from December 29 through to Jan 4. 

“Then the rain came, then the water was turned off. 

“We had a mass exodus, people demanding refunds, cancellations.”

Naseby suffered surface flooding throughout town over the weekend. Photo contributed. 

Mike, who is a volunteer firefighter with the Naseby Brigade, says the brigade went house-to-house delivering water for flushing toilets. 

They were refilling from Coalpit Dam in the Naseby forest. 

“I’d like to know, were all the water storage tanks full of water before Christmas 2020,” Beth says. 

“There’s lots of tanks up there, everyone knew the weather pattern was coming in, they should have known how much water they needed to take from the water race. 

“If the tanks were full, there’s obviously an issue with the amount of people coming into town and the infrastructure isn’t big enough. 

“Water usage wasn’t as high, because people had left because of the rain.” 

The couple say they have gone from looking healthy this holiday season, and recovering from COVID to being “on the back foot”. 

“We aren’t going to recover as we expected to,” Beth says. “We are damp and miserable, but we haven’t had a decent shower. 

“The majority of people cancelled due to the water situation; people said they would come due to weather, but they wouldn’t due to the drinking water and boiling water notice. 

“My understanding is there is no water to flush toilets. 

“We weren’t advised the water would be switched off. We were only notified after it was turned off. 

“We were told the fire brigade weren’t told the water would be turned off as well. 

“There’s very, very poor communication from Council.” 

Dansey’s Pass, near Naseby, suffered significant flooding over the past week and is closed for repairs. Photo contributed. 

The couple say the whole situation amounts to both a health and civil defence issue. 

“All of our systems were in place to make sure we wouldn’t flood at all,” Beth says. 

“The majority of people have left, which is a terrible situation coming on the back of COVID. 

“If people get sick from this, it would be a big public health situation. 

“Everybody here has to go into town to get water from the tanker in Derwent Street. 

“They took the tanker away to fill up, and that was away for about three hours.” 

With water now on in town but not filtered, Beth and Mike Connell say you can have a shower but you come out dirtier than when you went in. 

“After this, we’ll need a plumber to come in and clean out the filters and everything, as well as our tanks. So there's a financial impact there too. 

“Local people are just frustrated and angry; the people who live here permanently are just so frustrated. 

“We talk about Naseby being the jewel in Central Otago’s crown but we seem to get left behind. 

“The people who were here last year, and were here again this year, won’t come back next year. 

“We’ve had people coming here for 30 years and they’ve said they’ve never seen a problem like this. 

“The locals know what’s going on, there’s a lack of investment in infrastructure and we are just frustrated. Locals probably pay the most than anyone in terms of water.” 

Beth, who was quite upset by the situation, was emotional because of the offers of help they have received. 

“There’s been some amazing kindness,” she says. “Some campers have left early and haven’t asked for a refund. Some people didn’t even get here and still paid. 

“When the rain was coming down heavily, we had so many messages of support and help.”