36212 (2025). Lan Pham to the Minister of Local Government

36212 (2025). Lan Pham to the Minister of Local Government: How many, if any, boil water notices have Taumata Arowai sent in the past year, and how does this compare with the previous 5 years, listed by location and length of boil water notices?

Hon Simon Watts: The Water Services Authority – Taumata Arowai has been the drinking water regulator since November 2021. Boil water notices are an important safety tool, issued to consumers when there are risks to drinking water safety that can be appropriately managed by boiling the water before consumption. The vast majority of boil water notices are issued directly by suppliers as a way to meet their statutory duty to supply safe drinking water to consumers. There have been 458 of these issued since November 2021. The Authority can also issue, or direct a supplier to issue, a boil water notice when appropriate to ensure safe drinking water. Since November 2021, ten notices have been issued by suppliers at the Authority’s direction. Nine of these were in the last 12 months; eight of these were issued as part of the Authority’s programme to address a lack of multi-barrier protections in public supplies. These notices are listed in the table attached to WPQ reply 36212.