Te Whatu Ora Public Health Unit for Waikato would like to
remind people that have their own supply of drinking water
to their household, that it is important to ensure that it
is safe following recent weather events.
Safe drinking
water is vital for the good health of you and your family
and the people who visit your home. Water used for drinking,
teeth cleaning, hand washing, bathing, showering, food
preparation, and cooking needs to be free from harmful germs
and chemicals.
If you store your drinking water in a
tank, it is important that you check for any foreign matters
that may have been drawn into the tank and are potentially
contaminating the water within the tank. To disinfect your
tank use household plain bleach (not scented varieties as
Janola). For calculating the dose of bleach needed to
disinfect please see Page 34 of https://www.esr.cri.nz/assets/WATER-CONTENT/ESR0940-Household-water-supply.pdf
. Leave untouched for 24 hours to allow the chlorine to
work.
If you collect drinking water from your roof,
you will need to check the gutters for any leaves and other
material that may have become lodged in the spouting. All
spouting needs to be clean and the roof itself checked for
any debris, sediment or animal excrement. We do recommend
using a first flush divider, this to remove the initial
contaminates before they go into your tank.
If you
source your water from a stream or spring please be aware
that this source may be very contaminated at the moment, so
ensuring that you have an adequate form of treatment in
place is absolutely essential for the health of you and your
family.
It is advised that if you have filters in
place, then we suggest changing these, as a lot of material
could have blocked these and potentially lessening their
ability at protecting your supply.
All other forms of
treatment as ultraviolent disinfection lights will
potentially need the bulb cleaned or even replaced, to
ensure it does what it is supposed to
do.
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