That is the question the Hastings District Council will need to answer over the contamination of its water supply to Havelock North. The risk should not lie in a municipal water supply, not in New Zealand. Some residents are also asking whether the council warned them on Friday as soon as it knew the water supply was suspect. By the time the result was received, "patterns of illness" were already being discussed with the Hawke's Bay District Health Board. Residents need to be boiling their drinking water, or buying it in bottles, until the council can tell them it is safe again.

Source: New Zealand Herald August 15, 2016 16:52 UTC