Speaking at hearings for the council’s nine-year plan and Local Water Done Well — government reform on the future delivery of drinking water, wastewater and stormwater — Surrey St Flood Action Group convener Lynne Newell said residents had been seeking justice for years on the issue.
"We counted over 30 years of fruitless submissions and millions of dollars spent commissioning engineering firms to investigate the waste and stormwater situation in South Dunedin and further afield," she said.
"They designed engineering solutions to our problems that could have had us drying out by now, but they were ignored."
Ms Newell said the South Dunedin Future programme was a deliberate "delaying tactic" to appease residents.
The cost of options range from $2 billion to $7.1b.
"Nothing new has been learnt from this costly project as many of the people in South Dunedin know," Ms Newell said.
"All they have come up with is unknowable, estimated costs, an option of mass exodus of people to God knows where and leave the best land in the city to ducks and eels."
She said by diverting wastewater and stormwater from the hill suburbs to South Dunedin, the council was knowingly risking the health of residents.
Justice and a public apology was needed for "decades of putting [Surrey St] residents and ultimately the whole of South Dunedin at risk of serious disease and possibly deaths".
She said flooding risk across Dunedin and the Taieri was not caused by climate change — it was instead caused by land impermeability from increased housing development, population density and a decaying piping and pumping network system.
"At the end of the day, the most important thing a council has to do is ensure that you’ve got clean drinking water, that you’re taking away the sewage and that people can travel safely around the city.
"That’s your core business — all the other frills are nice-to-have.
She also asked for the council to implement a "mana-enhancing" media policy for South Dunedin, to give residents and business owners respect and promote the area as a valuable flat land asset.
