Mataura Water Treatment Plant Upgrade Underway

The Mataura water treatment plant is getting a multi-million dollar upgrade that will ensure drinking water for the town's residents meets national standards.

The upgrade includes installing an ultraviolet (UV) system, replacing and upgrading the old pipework, pumps and other mechanical equipment, and modernising all the electrical controls.

3 Waters Asset Manager Matt Bayliss said the plant was built in the 1960s, and a lot of the equipment was getting towards the end of its useful life.

"As you can imagine, there's been quite a lot of advancement in automation and monitoring."

The upgrade will also ensure the plant meets current chemical storage and health and safety requirements, he said.

The existing treatment process involves chemical coagulation, which binds particles in the water to make their removal easier, plus sand filtration followed by chlorine and caustic treatment for pH correction.

"While the existing treatment process meets New Zealand drinking water standard requirements, adding a UV treatment system will provide an extra layer of protection over and above the minimum requirements," Mr Bayliss said.

The total budget for the project is $3.5 million.

The Council considered several options as part of the planning and budget process, Mr Bayliss said.

These included supplying Mataura's water from Gore's water supply, building a new treatment plant, or having a combined supply with the Alliance Group's Mataura meat works.

"We found refurbishing the existing plant was the best solution."

Work started at the Doctor's Road site late last year and is expected to be completed by October.

Mr Bayliss said there should be minimal disruption to Mataura's water supply. However, there will be aspects of the work that will impact the treatment plant's capacity.

This includes refurbishing of the plant's two filters, which starts on Monday 17 April.

"We expect to be able to keep up with demand given we are past the summer peak demand period. However, if demand starts exceeding what we can treat, we may have to ask residents to conserve water.

"There will also be work where we need to shut down the treatment plant for short periods, say up to eight hours.

"During this time, we will be operating off the treated water stored in our reservoirs. Consequently, we aren't expecting any impact on the supply to residents."

Mr Bayliss said the Council would notify residents via its app Antenno and Facebook when any work may affect the water supply.