Major milestone - soft water onstream

On 27 November 2009 Mayor Michael Laws announced that Wanganui had reached a major milestone in its aim to provide soft water to city residents.

"Our commitment to providing soft water has paid off with the investigations into the new bores at Westmere," Mayor Laws said.

"Today I am delighted to announce that the water from Abelard is on stream and is being mixed with water from the existing bulk supply to achieve a significantly softer water supply.

"Not only will this provide significant benefits to users of the city water supply, including annual savings of $230 a year, it will also improve the volume in our bulk supply. This means we will be better able to cope with summer droughts."

Stage 1 of the project sees water from Abelard bore mixed into the city supply. There will be a gradual change over the next few weeks, with softer water being provided to everyone on the city supply.

Investigations are continuing at the second Westmere bore, Heloise. Depending on the water quality, this source is due to come online in April 2010. Another bore site is also being investigated.

"This is great news for Wanganui residents who are going to have a much-improved water supply and additional cost savings and benefits from no longer having hard water ruining appliances and water cylinders."

Soft water and bulk water supply factsheet (PDF, 13KB)
Soft water questions and answers (PDF, 20KB)
Map of Wanganui's water bores (PDF, 383KB)
Water hardness graph (PDF, 24KB)