The comments, reported in the Otago Daily Times recently, were made by Dunedin City Council Finance and Strategy Committee chairman Cr Richard Walls and are causing waves in the city's surfing community.
Cr Walls said until the economic climate changed, projects such as the Awatea St Stadium, the Settlers Museum, drainage, road renewal and the installation of a secondary treatment system at the Tahuna plant might have to be deferred.
Tahuna resident Peter McLachlan, who has been surfing between Invercargill and Karitane for more than 30 years, is adamant that the surfing community will not be quiet if the secondary treatment plant is deferred.
‘‘There are quite a few of us who will be quite angry and we won't be quiet about it. We don't like people promising things and then not delivering,'' Mr McLachlan said.
When contacted by The Star, Cr Walls said he merely meant that if the current economic climate continued, capital works projects might have to be deferred, but at this stage work would be going ahead at the plant.
Mr McLachlan said that surfers were ‘‘champing at the bit'' to surf at Tomahawk Beach.
‘‘The only reason they don't now is because it's not good for your health.''
Quarry Beach surfboard shaper Graham Carse is concerned about the waste levels in the water and how long it has taken for the situation to be addressed.
‘‘If it doesn't happen I think it would be time to get some sort of protest in order to get it moving. They need to get it done as soon as possible. It has taken long enough already,'' Mr Carse said.
Mr Carse attended the 25th Jubilee of the South Coast Boardriders in 1991 and remembers Cr Walls, who was mayor at the time, talking about a need for wastewater treatment.
‘‘Back then they were going to get it sorted and we all thought it was great,'' he said.
Mr Carse started surfing at Tomahawk during the late-1960s and stopped in the 1970s.
‘‘I stopped in the '70s because people were getting sick. I was out there recently and the pollution was really bad - it's disgusting.
‘‘Dunedin is a primo spot and people who come to surf here can't believe they are surfing in waste.''
For the surfing community, the secondary treatment plant would open access to more of the city's surf breaks and mean less ear, eye and throat infections, both surfers said.
