I remember the day after the big Christchurch earthquake in February 2011, listening to the battery-powered radio and hearing all the talk about the risk of water contamination. 
That was because they reckoned at the time that about 50 percent of the city's underground water and sewerage services had been damaged. I can’t remember if that figure about the extent of the damage changed much over time - especially once they started digging up the roads to fix things - but that was what they were talking about in the early days after the quake. 
And so we were boiling the water before we drank it then, weren’t we? Some of us were also busy tracking down those springs around the place which let us get our hands on some of the purest water anywhere. The water that Christchurch people are so passionate about protecting. 
So, one of the first things the council in Christchurch did to deal with that risk of contamination after the quake was to put chlorine in the drinking water. 
And it kept doing that until December 2011, when mayor Bob Parker (now Sir Bob Parker) announced that Christchurch’s water was “absolutely chlorine-free". 
He said: "The beautiful purity of the city's water supply is back,. Regaining the quality of our water is a major step forward in the recovery." 
It was early days in the recovery, wasn’t it? December 2011. But that was when the chlorination of the water stopped. 
I say “stopped”, not “ended”, because fast-forward to early 2018 - which was when the Christchurch City Council decided to bring the chlorine back after it reviewed its underground wells and pumping stations and found that things weren’t as they should be. 
And so, in March 2018 they, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to use chlorine to treat the water at the 56 pumping stations in Christchurch because there was an issue with the wellheads which needed to be sorted. 
This, of course, came after the situation in Havelock North in 2016 when three people died and 5500 got crook because of a disease in the water supply there. That very unfortunate incident has become - and I’m not wanting to sound crass here - but it’s become the Government’s poster child for its Three Waters reforms, hasn’t it? 
But, back to Christchurch, where we still have chlorine in the water in some parts of town. Despite some of our local body politicians banging on about getting rid of it. 
Now all of that stuff with the chlorine started way before the Covid pandemic. And it happened at a time when, I think, people were far more willing to just go along with whatever they were told needed to be done to protect the community and our health. 
It is a very different environment today, because most people are sick and tired of being told what to do. 
And it’s the environment in which Christchurch City Council is having to work out how it is going to go about putting fluoride in our drinking water. So we won’t just have chlorine - we’ll have fluoride in our water too, because the Ministry of Health says we have to. 
Until now, councils have decided for themselves whether to fluoridate their drinking water. And Christchurch hasn’t done it. Hasn’t thought it’s needed. In fact, Christchurch is the largest city in the country not to be fluorinated. 
But late last year, the Government passed legislation which takes that control out of council hands and gives the Director-General of Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, the power to force councils to fluoridate their drinking water. 
And that’s exactly what he’s doing - and early next month Christchurch city councillors will be told what it’s going to cost. The estimates are being done by council staff right now. 
The money for fluoridation of Christchurch’s drinking water won’t be coming from the Government, by the way. The council is going to have to pay for it - although I see Mayor Lianne Dalziel is pushing back on that, saying whatever it costs, the...

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.