Deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?

Any number of months have passed since Another Kiwi informed the eager Riddled readership about the exciting and lottery-based nature of drinking the tapwater in Havelock North. Now you are probably asking yourself many questions, like "What's really in these Cornish Pasties from Mrs Miggins' Pie Shop?" and "How about an update?" For AK has been silent on recent developments in the story, and it may be that he has been nobbled or his silence has been bought by Big Water, although I am more inclined to suspect the involvement of Big Gin.

Now we are focused here on the Heretaunga Plains, where --  if I may quote a bottled-water company --

Three major rivers cross the plains; the Ngaruroro, the Tukituki and the Tutaekuri.

But no-one of any sense drinks water from these rivers because before they pass by the Cities of the Plains they trickle through dairy-farm country. Suffice to say that "Tutaekuri" translates into the English as "dog shit". I am not making this up. Instead we rely upon artesian wells and akvavit, in Hastings at any rate (how they cope in Napier does not bear thinking about).

By "Recent developments" I refer of course to the GNS report:

Yesterday Hastings District Council released a report from GNS Science, which revealed water - some as young as a month old - had been found in its bores.

"Water in the bores", you are thinking, "that sounds good, it's the very thing they're looking for, like finding a lump of coal in a coal mine", feel free to think this in a Peter Cook voice. But a word was elided there... they refer specifically to under-aged water finding its way into the pipes, and in this particular situation, it seems, when dealing with water, fresh is not necessarily best. Water improves with age, in the manner of wine and Old Scythe-Sharpener Beer-Flavoured Beverage and AK's jokes, preferably decades. So this is not a desirable situation.

"Clearly what it means is that for the first time we can now show it is new [water], something has dramatically changed in the aquifer and there is new water entering what were traditionally very secure supplies."

Borewater may be hallucinogenic

The reason for the change is uncertain.

this could suggest levels of water abstraction - the taking of water from the aquifer for irrigation, industrial use, municipal water supply and other purposes - might be having an influence on the aquifers...

In retrospect it could be that Hastings was not the optimal location to set up a $2mill factory pumping out 900,000 m³ / year from the aquifer to ship to China for the bottled-water industry.

Timely Oglaf is timely

Last night's "Notochord homologs in the Pterobranchia and Haiku Slam Night" at the Old Entomologist turned somehow into a brainstorming benefit night, as we thought of new illustrations that the Miracle Water company might want to use on its labels for future shipments.

AFTERTHOUGHT: