The city council’s response to flood-weary Surrey St residents has been slammed as "disingenuous", "incompetent" and "ignorant".
About 69mm of rain fell on South Dunedin at the weekend and while there was no widespread surface flooding as a result, Surrey St residents said manhole covers lifted and malfunctioning valves spewed sewage into the street and yards.
Toilets filled to the brim and residents said they were afraid to use them.
The Otago Daily Times yesterday saw menstrual products and what appeared to be soiled wet wipes in the street.
After visiting Surrey Street Flood Action Group convener Lynne Newell, the ODT met about a dozen fed-up residents.
They said the pipes underground were too old and unsuited for the job that the Dunedin City Council expected them to do.
There was anger towards the council, some focused on comments from chief executive Sandy Graham and Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich - as reported in yesterday’s ODT - which the residents said minimised or misrepresented the issues they faced.
In response, Dunedin City Council Three Waters and transition general manager David Ward said the residents’ claims contained "a spectacular amount of misinformation and falsehood".
Retired flood control engineer Neil Johnstone, who is advising the Surrey St group, said "just about everything" the mayor and Ms Graham said was "incompetent", "ignorant" or worse.
Ms Newell took issue with Ms Graham’s claim that toilets were usable, but may have been unable to be flushed for "a short period overnight".
Hers was unusable for at least 40 hours, Ms Newell said.
Cleaning up the sewage in the street had been slow, because the council was "denying" it was happening.
"This is an emergency."
"I think it’s really disingenuous that the city chief executive is basically out here saying it would be a really good idea if residents gave us their ideas," Mr Tromop said.
"They’ve had our ideas and our complaints for over 20 years now.
"It’s just appalling that someone like that, in a position of responsibility, should duck-shove this, should just ignore this, put it on its side, say, ‘oh, well, there weren’t any really big problems’.
"That’s not right, there were. This happens time and time again.
"It happens too frequently, and it’s reprehensible that the council have not dealt with this."
Marj Still said she called the council on Saturday to say she could not flush her toilet and was told to call a plumber.
If the plumber determined it was the Stills’ problem, they would have to pay for it.
If it was a council issue then the council would pay for it, she was told.
"It was the council’s problem," Mrs Still said yesterday.
Ron Harvey said a lid popped off a "non-return valve" in his neighbour’s yard, and sewage spewed across the lawn on Saturday morning.
Mr Ward said the council acknowledged there was a problem with Three Waters infrastructure in the Surrey St area, where a "bottleneck" existed in the network.
Wastewater was coming to the area from other parts of the city due to the "current configuration of the network".
Capacity issues were compounded by rainwater getting into older pipes around the city and taking up space in the pipes.
The council expected to be able to say more later in the year about its preferred option for dealing with the bottleneck, Mr Ward said.
But for now, it was replacing 1.5km of old wastewater pipes in Kaikorai Valley where a large amount of rainwater was infiltrating the wastewater system.
The council had further plans to replace another 13km in the coming years.
"The problem in the Surrey St area is a long-standing one, but the solutions are also complex and expensive - which is why we’ve been planning carefully for the future in South Dunedin, while progressing other short-term improvements there and in other parts of our network," Mr Ward said.
The council had installed non-return valves to protect residents’ homes in Surrey St and replaced ageing pipes in other parts of the network that contributed to water infiltration and pressure on the network there.
"Unfortunately, due to the existing constraints on the network in the Surrey St area, pipes there were at capacity during the weekend rainfall event.
"This led to some localised discharges of heavily diluted flows, which were largely contained to the street’s gutters.
"We had staff and contractors visiting the site regularly throughout the event to make sure the flows were draining away and not at risk of entering homes."
The council’s 9-year plan - approved yesterday - included $60 million for wet weather flow management improvements, including in South Dunedin, he said.
It also included $44.2m for flood alleviation work in South Dunedin, of which $29.2m was for three projects in the short term.
