Someone keeps turning Invercargill's Gala St fountain into a bubble bath — and it's costing ratepayers more than $5000 a year to clean up.
The soap suds prank, a recurring nuisance at the city centre fountain, requires staff to neutralise the foam with vinegar around 50 times a year. Each callout costs roughly $100. Council general manager water services Matt Keil says that figure understates the real damage.
"However, if you factor in the amount of staff time lost to remedying this – and subsequently being redirected from other tasks – the true cost is higher," Keil said. "Staff time would be better spent carrying out the necessary mahi their roles require."
The fountain came up at a recent council workshop after parks and recreation manager Caroline Rain explained the clean-up process involved "staff time and a few gallons of vinegar". Rain also flagged a bigger financial issue: the installation of backflow preventers on the city's network has meant water meters are going in, adding cost to budgets. At some point, councillors will need to weigh up whether to keep funding water play and fountains at Queens Park and Gala St — a bill of more than $100,000 a year — or turn the water off altogether.
Deputy mayor Grant Dermody suggested the two sites should be considered separately. He noted the Gala St fountain was probably being soaped up every couple of days and wondered whether the council should look at emptying it.
That didn't land well. Councillor Alex Crackett pushed back hard, calling it the "iconic water feature" and the only one of its kind in the city.
"I don't think the public sentiment would go down very well at all if we were to talk about not having water running through it," Crackett said.
Keil told Local Democracy Reporting that a backflow protection device was installed at the Queens Park entrance in 2025 to guard against cross-contamination — a standard measure placed alongside water meters.
No decision has been made on the fountain's future. But the council can't keep tipping vinegar on the problem indefinitely.