A satellite campus near Ashburton has spent 18 months trucking in drinking water after nitrate contamination breached the national drinking water standard, offering a cautionary case study for boards managing rural school infrastructure.
Documents released under the Official Information Act show the Lagmhor campus, part of Ashburton Borough School, was warned of unsafe water in February last year after a test returned a Nitrate-N reading of 11.5 milligrams per litre, exceeding the maximum allowed value of 11.3mg/L. The two classroom site has relied on trucked in water since, while the board works with the Ministry of Education on a permanent solution.
A subsequent attempt to source compliant water from a well drilled 120 metres deep still returned an elevated reading, underscoring how difficult and costly a fix can be in areas with widespread groundwater contamination. University of Canterbury public health associate professor Tim Chambers said the depth required to reach compliant water highlighted a wider equity issue for rural households and schools without the resources to drill deep wells.
The school board said the health, safety and wellbeing of students and staff had remained its highest priority throughout the process, while declining to be interviewed directly on the specifics of the case.
The Lagmhor situation is not isolated. Canterbury has the highest percentage of elevated groundwater nitrates in the country according to a recent Earth Sciences New Zealand study, and Environment Canterbury’s latest annual groundwater survey found nitrate rising in 62% of test wells regionally, with more than 10% exceeding the drinking water limit.
For principals and boards in similarly exposed rural catchments, the case is a reminder to test water supplies regularly and to build contingency planning into infrastructure budgets well before a compliance breach forces an urgent, and often expensive, temporary fix.
