KAIPARA · OFFICIAL COUNCIL DATA
What's actually in Dargaville and Kaipara's tap water
Kaipara District Council answered with a year of its operator's monitoring and the lab certificates behind it - 778 chlorine readings across the five zones with enough to report, Dargaville to Ruawai. E. coli: zero detections in 264 samples. The water is safe. The same release shows what stays in it at the tap: chlorine in every zone, chlorination by-products hundreds of times above the EWG health guidelines in every zone, and in Ruawai's bore water a chlorate reading at 62% of the legal limit. The free check reads your address.
THE HEADLINE NUMBERS
Five zones, by-products in every one.
Your water passes New Zealand's rules. Kaipara District Council's operator treats it properly - river water through coagulation, clarification and filtration, bore water straight to disinfection, chlorine and UV everywhere - and the results show it. The same results show what stays in the water at the tap. Every zone returned trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids well above the EWG health guidelines, and four of the five a lead trace against a health goal of zero. The numbers are below; what you do about them is up to you.
ZONE BY ZONE
What was found in your zone
Chlorine, pH and turbidity are read in the field about three times a week and the bacteria tests go to the lab; chlorination by-products each quarter and metals every six months at Watercare Laboratory Services. These are the council's own results. Typical figures are the year's medians; peaks are the highest single sample.
| Zone | Chlorine, typical | THMs, highest sample | Haloacetic acids | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dargaville | 1.14 mg/L | 0.0207 mg/L | 0.0027 mg/L | chlorine peaked at 1.68; lead 0.00027 mg/L - the health goal is zero |
| Baylys Beach | 0.99 mg/L | 0.0343 mg/L | 0.008 mg/L | no lead detected - the district's one lead-free zone; pH 8.0 |
| Maungaturoto | 1.11 mg/L | 0.0324 mg/L | 0.0097 mg/L | copper 0.017 mg/L, inside the 1.3 health goal; lead 0.00076 |
| Maungaturoto Railway Village | 0.98 mg/L | 0.0371 mg/L | 0.0128 mg/L | THMs 247 times the EWG guideline; lead 0.00029 |
| Ruawai | 0.97 mg/L | 0.038 mg/L | 0.0054 mg/L | chlorate 0.495 mg/L in treated water, 62% of the legal limit; lead 0.00057 |
Source: Kaipara District Council LGOIMA response, received September 2026 - Downer NZ operations data and Watercare Laboratory Services certificates. Chlorine typicals are zone medians of the field readings, July 2025 to June 2026; pH ran 7.5 to 8.0 typical, turbidity peaked between 0.45 and 0.9 NTU. THM figures are the highest per-sample totals from three quarterly rounds, summing quantified species and reproducing the lab's own printed totals; the October 2025 THM round is excluded because the lab's certificate says every sample arrived in the incorrect container for that test - its haloacetic acids, unaffected, are kept. HAA sums the five HAA5 species. Metals are two plumbosolvency rounds; mercury, cadmium and antimony below detection everywhere. Ruawai's chlorate is 44 treated-water samples. A Ruawai turbidity reading of 25 NTU, one swapped-looking Baylys Beach row and two impossible Mangawhai pH values were excluded and are listed in the data file. All zone readings sit inside New Zealand's legal limits. Mangawhai (no metals, no by-products) and Glinks Gully (no metals) are in the release but not reported. Nothing states fluoridation, and there are no fluoride, PFAS or microplastics results anywhere in the release.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR HOUSE
Three things to know.
By-products in every zone
Chlorine meeting natural organic matter forms trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, and Kaipara's river and bore supplies show it in every zone. Ruawai's THM peak of 0.038 mg/L is 253 times the EWG health guideline, Maungaturoto Railway Village's 0.0371 is 247 times, and even Dargaville's lowest reading of 0.0207 is 138 times. Inside New Zealand's limits - both true.
Ruawai's chlorate
Chlorate forms in the hypochlorite used to disinfect and comes through with the water. Ruawai's treated water ran 0.259 mg/L typical across 44 samples and peaked at 0.495 - inside New Zealand's 0.8 mg/L legal limit, at 62% of it. There is no verified international health goal for chlorate, so it is reported here against the New Zealand limit and nothing else.
Lead in four zones, and what was not tested
Lead is picked up from old pipes, solder and brass fittings on the way to your tap, and four of the five zones found it - Maungaturoto's 0.00076 mg/L is 3.8 times the EWG health guideline. Baylys Beach was the exception. No fluoride result appears in the release, Mangawhai and Glinks Gully are in it without the tests a report needs, and not one PFAS or microplastics test was run.
YOUR ADDRESS
This is the district picture. Get the report for your home.
The free water check takes about two minutes, and it includes the PDF water report for your address - written from the same release, read for your house.
THE SYSTEM THAT FITS
What we'd fit in Kaipara.
The by-products in every zone, the lead trace in four of them, and the PFAS and microplastics nobody tests for only come out at the kitchen tap with reverse osmosis, and that's the ES60's job. If it's the chlorine in your showers that bothers you, that's a whole-house filter - we supply those by arrangement, so call us on 021 709 370.
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