Your editors went to the Art Deco Weekend in Napier as we often do, and decided to stay in Havelock North which, as some readers will remember, had its drinking water supply contaminated by a campylobacter outbreak in August 2016 which made over 5,000 people violently ill and was linked to four deaths. The source of it was a surface pond less than 100 metres from the bore, scientific test results showed.
We asked the B’n’B lady where we stayed what things were like now. It seems the water is considered officially ‘safe’, but has so much chlorine in it that it’s horrible. “We only drink water from our filter.” However, even filtered it wasn’t great tasting. That sentiment seems standard in the town, according to this article from last August on the NZ Herald website:
“[Havelock North resident Anna] Lorck said many locals still fear the water.
“People just don’t trust the water. People are still buying their water, people are still going to pump stations and filling up bottles with water. Many people in our community would love to have chlorine-free water.”
Naturally, we also asked our hostess, “Do you have water meters here?” No, she said, people wouldn’t stand for them. We told her that 70% of Kapiti people didn’t want the Rowan & Dougherty water meters either, but they still got imposed on our suffering ratepayers.
We also told her that in Ireland 73% of citizens refused to pay the water meter charges that the Irish government decided to foist on them, bringing the government down.
With that, we decided to go to the local Irish pub, the Rose and Shamrock, to celebrate Irish spirit in more ways than one!
And at the Art Deco celebration:
For your editors the main draw was the 300+ classic cars.
But costumes were appealing too, they ranged from elaborate to the bare essentials. 🙂