News
Updates to Drinking Water Reporting Requirements
Date: 13 May 2022
Author: Hill Laboratories
As of 2021, New Zealand has a new independent water services regulator named Taumata Arowai. Partly born out of drinking water supply incidents such as Havelock North and others, Taumata Arowai's initial focus is on improving access to safe drinking water for all New Zealanders.
While most of the new proposed rules and standards are still in draft form, some new regulations affecting laboratories conducting drinking water analyses have come into effect, which impact both our laboratory and our customers. Hill Laboratories must now comply with the Drinking-water Standards of New Zealand and the Water Services Act 2021. The Act requires us to notify Taumata Arowai when a drinking water test result has exceeded a Maximum Acceptable Value (MAV) as defined in the drinking water standards.
A key exception to this requirement is for drinking water samples from stand-alone domestic dwellings - we are not required to report test results from stand-alone domestic dwellings to Taumata Arowai.
In addition, Hill Laboratories are not required to report any past drinking water test results to Taumata Arowai.
The drinking water supplies listed below are included in the requirement to notify Taumata Arowai:
• Registered water supplies owned and/or operated by councils
• Registered and unregistered water supplies owned and/or operated by other organisations, such as marae, hospitals, campgrounds, schools, places of work and hospitality
• Registered and unregistered water carriers
• Unregistered supplies that are private that do not fall under the criteria of domestic self-supply, such as a bore servicing multiple domestic dwellings or rain water servicing multiple separate apartments contained in a single building
When you submit a drinking water sample to Hill Laboratories for a Routine Water profile or for E.Coli testing, we will now ask for information regarding the type of drinking water supply the sample is from. The water supply information provided will enable Hill Laboratories to fulfil our reporting obligations to Taumata Arowai.
For more information on Taumata Arowai, please visit their website.
If you would like more information on how your drinking water test results will be processed at Hill Laboratories, our client services team will be happy to help, and are contactable on env.csm@hill-labs.co.nz