Drinking Water Aesthetic Values

Overview

The aesthetic values (properties) of drinking water that affect its acceptability to consumers, including its taste, odour, appearance and in some instances feel. Consumers will often be more aware of these values than the health-related limits that influence drinking water’s safety. 
Water is considered acceptable when its aesthetic values are not objectionable to most consumers.

Detailed Summary

Taumata Arowai is running a public consultation on Aesthetic Values for Drinking Water that will be made under the Water Services Act 2021.

Drinking Water Aesthetic Values are established to ensure that drinking water is acceptable to consumers for issues such as appearance, taste and odour.

Drinking Water Aesthetic Values is a technical document covering minimum or maximum amounts of substances and other characteristics that relate to the acceptability of drinking water to consumers.

We recommend that you read the following papers before responding to the consultation:

Drinking Water Aesthetic Values – Summary (176 KB, PDF)

Drinking Water Aesthetic Values (195 KB, PDF)

Please note that Taumata Arowai is also consulting on:

• Drinking Water Standards
• Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules
• Drinking Water Acceptable Solution for Rural Agricultural Water Supplies
• Drinking Water Acceptable Solution for Roof Water Supplies
• Drinking Water Acceptable Solution for Spring and Bore Supplies
• Drinking Water Network Environmental Performance

Why your views matter

Your feedback will help us to shape the Drinking Water Aesthetic Values for Aotearoa so that it meets the needs of drinking water suppliers.

You can have your say by reviewing the papers identified above and answering the questions relating to the proposed Drinking Water Aesthetic Values or providing additional comments (see link below).

Submissions are open from 17 January to 28 March 2022. You can submit:

1. by completing the online survey (link below) on this website
2. by emailing your submission to korero@taumataarowai.govt.nz, or
3. by posting your submission to:

                 Taumata Arowai, 
                 PO Box 628, Wellington 6140, 
                 New Zealand.

You do not need to answer all the questions if you are only interested in some aspects of the consultation.

Publishing submissions and Official Information Act 1982 requests

Publishing your submission

We intend to proactively publish the submissions made as part of this consultation on our website, but only if we are given permission to do so.

We may publish a summary of submissions. The summary will be aggregated to a level so that individual submissions cannot be identified.

Official Information Act requests

Your submission may be subject to requests made under the Official Information Act 1982 (even if it has not been published). We must make your submission available in response to such a request, unless we have a good reason or other administrative grounds for withholding it.

Personal details can be withheld under the Official Information Act 1982, including your name and address. If you do not want any information you provide to be released, please indicate this clearly and explain why. For example, you may wish for some information to be kept confidential because it is sensitive personal information. Taumata Arowai will take your views into account when responding to such requests.

Privacy Act 2020

The Privacy Act 2020 governs how Taumata Arowai collects, holds, uses, and discloses personal information about you and the information you provide. You have the right to access and correct your personal information.