A year on from the South Dunedin floods, and what progress has been made, Ray Macleod asks.
People are still hurting as a result of the floods experienced in the wider South Dunedin area on June 3 last year.
However, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that the Dunedin City Council has been active in ensuring the mudtanks have been cleaned and has put in place a plan to upgrade the pump screens at the Portobello Rd pumping station at Musselburgh in August this year.
These are good outcomes and we are grateful but they have only been achieved because of the persistence of some key individuals in holding the council to account.
The South Dunedin Action Group emerged as a result of the hard work of Dunedin South MP Clare Curran and the initiative she took to organise a public meeting to hear and air the concerns of the people living in the area who were affected by the floods in June 2015.
Interestingly, a wider group of Dunedin people turned up to express their views over the poor performance of the council during the floods and the apparent lack of any strategic and risk management initiatives to avoid or reduce the impact of future events.
This group formed the South Dunedin Action Group whose primary task is to seek robust and considered answers, solutions and management plans from the the council and to assist in securing a good future for South Dunedin.
I think we can expect a much more structured and timely response from the council if future flood events of this magnitude were to occur.
But in reality what steps have been made by the council towards putting in place a long-term stormwater management plan, not just for South Dunedin but also the wider urban area? And have any, even tentative, steps been taken to establish a provisional timeline and budget for such an undertaking?
What has happened since June 2015 when South Dunedin was so badly flooded? Well the council has admitted, but not apologised for, contributing a minimum of 200mm to the flood level because the pumps at Musselburgh were not working to capacity.
It remains unclear what the effect of blocked mudtanks was.
By any measure these system failures were significant contributors to the misery suffered by people living and working in the area. And the continuing uncertainty is still contributing to people's misery.
There have been several reports, the findings of which are hotly contested by some knowledgeable individuals.
The insurance industry's focus is firmly on its risks in the area. The latter risk has not been helped by the council's continuing reluctance to seemingly commit to the people and the area with a long-term plan.
Its ongoing muted response to addressing people's concerns is deeply concerning and in my view irresponsible.
It is clear that much still remains to be done to achieve a result. It appears South Dunedin has suffered as the result of a systemic failure by the council to manage the stormwater system adequately and to respond decisively and with leadership to both the flood event and any subsequent issues that were clearly emerging.
Much has been said about a contractor failure to clean mudtanks but as it transpires, it appears it was more correctly simply a poorly drafted contract and the contractor was actually fully compliant and warned the council of the issues.
On the night, road closures were not effective because road cones floated away. People didn't know the roads were closed.
And so it goes on. Sadly, it has been a comedic chain of errors, poor leadership, poor judgement and poor oversight.
Perhaps it is time to walk the streets again instead of staring at images on computer screens and ticking boxes?
To take a positive lesson from all this, it is evident that at an operational level the council has learnt a valuable lesson, albeit at a personal financial and in some case mental cost to many citizens. Thankfully it is unlikely we will see a repeat performance from the council.
This has a proviso that it maintains the existing stormwater system so it runs at capacity and it puts in place a well-organised response plan for managing adverse weather conditions.
I am hopeful that will be the case and the South Dunedin Action Group is hoping this is the case. If our confidence is warranted, the short-term plan is being sorted, although the pumping station issue is still be to put in place, and attention can be switched to the long-term strategy.
A long-term strategy to deal with the stormwater issues is sadly not in evidence to date. This requires community leadership and commitment.
-Ray Macleod is a St Clair resident and spokesman for the South Dunedin Action Group, but this is his personal opinion.
