The Hastings District Council has been criticised for not learning any lessons from a serious water contamination nearly two decades ago.

The government's hearing into August's contamination of Havelock North's drinking water, which struck down more than 5000 people, is underway this week.

The panel heard evidence yesterday that a similar contamination of e-coli occurred in 1998, which made 80 people sick.

Lawyer for the Solicitor General Nathan Gedye QC said a raft of recommendations from that incident were never followed up.

Yesterday it was also heard Hastings has the worst record for e-coli in water in the country.

Gedye QC told the panel the city has a long list of previous e-coli detections.

The hearing's expected to go for two weeks, and by the end of March the cause of the contamination must be determined.