A petition signed by about 30 residents of Surrey St asking the council to give urgent attention to the Surrey St diversion project outlined in its 2015-16 long-term plan was presented to the infrastructure services and networks committee yesterday.
The South Dunedin street has repeatedly flooded during times of heavy rain, with wastewater overflows contaminating homes.
Resident of 40 years Margaret Waide said she decided to start the petition after the latest heavy rain caused her backyard to flood and her toilet to overflow.
There had always been flooding issues in the street but they were becoming more frequent, she said.
Residents were forced to use buckets as temporary toilets and even abandon their homes during heavy rain, Mrs Waide said.
``With what happened recently I just thought it was time to let the council know how we are feeling and we can't just keep putting up with this for another 10 years.''
Her petition was supported by the Greater South Dunedin Action Group.
During the meeting, council 3 waters manager Tom Dyer told Mrs Waide work to address flooding in Surrey St was part of the wider Green Island wastewater treatment plant upgrade.
Preliminary work on the upgrade would start in the 2018-2019 financial year with major construction starting in the 2022-2023 financial year.
About $44million had been budgeted for the waste water treatment plant upgrade and a further $9million was budgeted for the construction of a new pipeline to carry wastewater from Kaikorai Valley to the Green Island plant, instead of South Dunedin, Mr Dyer said.
``This is a substantial piece of work that will take some time.''
After the meeting Greater South Dunedin Action Group president Ray Macleod said the council had not offered any short-term engineering solution to the flooding and wastewater issues South Dunedin experienced.
``I don't think the council is providing people in South Dunedin the level of service it is required to provide.''
Residents of South Dunedin could not wait another five or 10 years if their homes were being flooded every one or two years, Mr Macleod said.
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Right you asked for it, here is some other solutions Tom Dyer.
A) These guys from The University of Otago’s Centre for Sustainability always negative with no solutions only retreat retreat retreat, but then you expect that from an academic don’t you.
It was far worse in the 1950’s 1960’s, our back yard in Tainui would go under water 5 times a year, but the water receeded very quickly.
Around the late 1960’s the council built a pumping station and our back yard would only flood once or twice a year.
We could dig down 2 spade depths in the winter and water would come and go daily, maybe it was tidal I never new why.
Old photos of Tainui showed most of the area as a sort of inlet.
B )
1) A dam could be built between St Martins Island and Portobello.
A lock could be built between St Martins Island and the mainland near Port Chalmers and ships could be allowed up into the upper harbour when there was no chance of flooding in South Dunedin. But most of the time the upper harbour could be kept at half tide or whatever height tide was necessary to keep South Dunedin dry.
Which means there is this huge area for drainage during heavy rain etc.
Some parts of the Upper Harbour could be filled in for future housing.
2) Part of the upper harbour could be filled in obviously higher than the Portobello Road and block by block of South Dunedin could be shifted there temporarily so each block of South Dunedin could be raised to the required height above predicted sea level, then the houses could be shifted back. You might ask where would we get the fill from. Well there are many hills around Dunedin so no worry there.
Mayor Dave Cull said the bridge was ''the only way to go''.
A utilitarian bridge would not be good enough for the wider vision of the harbourside.
Cull has no vision at all for South Dunedin.
Club: a dam across the harbour wouldn't work. That's because the ground-water level over nearly all of South Dunedin isn't affected by the level of the sea. The South Dunedin ground-water level is higher than the average sea level (about 600mm higher) - and as you would expect, the groundwater flows into the sea and not the other way round. At places close to the shoreline, the level of the tide hinders or accelerates the flow of ground-water into the sea and at these places the groundwater has some tidal influence, but nearly all of South Dunedin is completely unaffected by short or long term changes in sea level.
In the 2015, and in the more recent floods, the cause had nothing to do with the level of the ground-water. The level was normal, or below normal, in each case. The cause of the flooding is the DCC, who has failed to properly maintain and upgrade the stormwater system. Over the last ten years our Mayors, Councillors and CEOs have underfunded the water, sewerage and stormwater systems to pay for their various useless, wasteful and unwanted projects. The DCC 10 year plan shows that they plan for the inadequate funding to continue. Expect things to get worse
Thank You JimmyJones.
Also, Club: there is no need to move any South Dunedin houses. They are not safe from the neglected stormwater system, but they are safe from sea level rize. The official NZ Government measurement for Dunedin's sea level rize is 1.3 mm per year. This means that, for this to be significant, it would take about 770 years (1000 mm ÷ 1.3 mm). At that time, the South Dunedin groundwater level would be about the same as now, but we would need a higher wall beside Portsmouth Drive to stop the big waves. The DCC and their scaremongering associates keep telling us that sea-level rize will accelerate, but they have been saying that for many years and there has been no acceleration. There is no reason to expect any acceleration. In 770 years we should expect to have a city council that puts the safety of the citizens above political idealism and self-aggrandizement.
These stats look good to go for me Jimmy Jones.