Have your say on proposed changes to drinking water Acceptable Solutions

Overview

Every day, drinking water suppliers play a vital role supporting the health and wellbeing of people across New Zealand by providing them with safe, reliable drinking water. 

To help, we provide different compliance pathways that suppliers can follow to meet their responsibilities. In general, the simpler (or lower risk) the supply, the simpler the requirements. 

An Acceptable Solution is currently one possible compliance pathway for some:  

• rural supplies that provide water for farm use (e.g. irrigation, stock) as well as for people to drink 
• drinking water supplies that serve 500 people or fewer.  

For some suppliers, following the requirements of an Acceptable Solution may be a more straightforward and cost-effective way to meet their responsibilities than completing a drinking water safety plan and following the Drinking Water Quality Assurance Rules (the Rules). 

Acceptable Solutions enable water to be treated at or near any buildings where people will drink it. This could include using an ‘end-point’ treatment system, which uses filters and ultraviolet (UV) light to disinfect the water. 

The current Acceptable Solutions were made in 2022 and are the first of their kind. We’ve learned about their operation over time and are consulting on proposed changes to help make them easier for suppliers to use. 

Some suppliers have told us the existing Acceptable Solutions can be difficult to understand 

Some suppliers have told us that it can be: 

• hard to figure out if an Acceptable Solution (or another approach, like following the Rules) is right for their supplies and community 
• challenging to determine which Acceptable Solution is right for a supply  
• difficult to understand what suppliers need to do to meet Acceptable Solution requirements. 

So, we’ve proposed changes and want your feedback on them 

To help make Acceptable Solutions easier to use, we’ve proposed some changes and want your feedback.  

Our aim is to help save suppliers and their communities, time, effort and cost, while providing good quality water to the people who drink it every day. 

Providing a compliance pathway for three types of supplies 

The Acceptable Solutions available today cover a mix of supply types (mixed-use rural) and source water types (spring/bore; roof water), so more than one Acceptable Solution could apply for a single supply.  

To make it easier to figure out whether an Acceptable Solution is right for a supply, we’re proposing that Acceptable Solutions provide requirements for three common types of smaller drinking water supplies: 

• mixed-use rural supplies (at least 50% of water supplied is for farm use (e.g. irrigation, stock) and up to 50% is provided for people to drink) 
• small and medium-sized networked supplies 
• self-supplied buildings. 

These Acceptable Solution documents would be supported by a range of practical, how-to resources.  

This isn’t the only way we’ve responded to supplier feedback. Earlier this year, we published a policy statement and flow chart to help clarify supplier responsibilities when using end-point treatment systems under an Acceptable Solution.  

Find out what’s proposed  

High-level information  

• Overview of proposed Acceptable Solutions
• Overview of key changes proposed
• Questions and answers

Full consultation document 

The discussion document includes links to the consultation questions and the three proposed Acceptable Solutions. 

• Read the discussion document

Online information sessions

As part of this consultation we held two online information sessions for people to find out what's proposed and ask questions. If you missed out on attending one of these sessions, you can find a link to the video below so you can find out more at a time that's convenient to you. 

• Link to recording

Have your say by 13 June 2025  

This consultation closes at 5pm on Friday, 13 June 2025.   

We encourage you to provide feedback by:  

• completing the online survey  
• Note: if you start responding to this consultation online and want to return to it later, select the 'save and come back later' option at the bottom of the page to save your progress.    

You can also send us your responses to the consultation questions in the discussion document:   

• by email at korero@taumataarowai.govt.nz  
• by post to Level 2, 10 Brandon Street, PO Box 628, Wellington 6140, New Zealand.  

Please include your name, or the name of your organisation, and contact details in your submission.   

Questions?   

If you have questions about this consultation, please email us at: korero@taumataarowai.govt.nz 

What happens next

Following this consultation, the Authority will refine the draft Acceptable Solutions based on feedback received. The final versions will include additional guidance and support to ensure effective implementation.

Your insights are invaluable to ensure that this framework achieves its goals of maintaining drinking water safety while keeping compliance costs proportionate to the scale, complexity, and risk profile of different drinking water supplies.

We have included a list of all the questions we ask through our consultation platform in Appendix 1 of this document to help you prepare submissions. However, we ask that, if possible, you use the online consultation platform to make your submission as that makes it easier for us to analyse the submissions received

Please provide your feedback on these proposed changes by 5pm, Friday, 13 June 2025.