Cow faeces have been identified as a contamination source for Napier's Pandora Pond over the summer.
On Wednesday, Hawke's Bay Regional Council's environment and services committee was presented with a report on the contamination, which resulted in locals falling violently ill.
Between February 12-19 this year the pond exceeded national water quality guidelines of 280 enterococci (bacteria) per 100 millilitres of water three times.
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Regional council coastal quality scientist Anna Madarasz-Smith told the committee that faecal source tracking of the high February levels returned an "unknown" contamination source.
Tracking identified the high March reading as being from cow faeces on an incoming tide. This "may indicate" a distant source, Madarasz-Smith said.
However, the higher result at that site, compared with another upstream site, indicated it was "more likely than not" that the contamination originated from the Thames/Tyne St catchment area.
The culprit seems to be a local meatworks. Another example of how the farming industry poisons our waterways. Hopefully they'll be taking a very close look at its waste outflow and its resource consents, and tightening up both. Its simply not acceptable for our rivers, lakes and streams to make people sick, and the council needs to clean it up.