Mayoral statement regarding boil water notice

Dunedin (Wednesday, 16 August 2017) – We want to be able to support small businesses and residents who may suffer hardship because of this week’s water quality issue.

I am therefore pleased to announce that, as a show of good faith, we plan to set aside a $100,000 fund to provide discretionary grants for people and small businesses where hardship has occurred. This sum is similar to a week’s budgeted commercial water revenue.

People will be able to apply to be considered for a grant. Details of how the fund will work, such as application criteria and grant limit, will be worked out by staff over the coming days.

The Chief Executive, Sue Bidrose, is keeping me well briefed on the situation and staff from across the organisation continue to contact residents and businesses in the affected area and put out public safety messages.

I am pleased with the way staff responded to this situation. As soon as they became aware of the issue, they took immediate action to stop any more untreated water entering the water supply and issued the boil water notice. They also got full messages out to people in the affected area. This is the sort of immediate openness and transparency I expect from my Council.

An international water expert for the Havelock North water inquiry, Dr Colin Fricker, has advised that the DCC’s response once it became aware of the issue was completely ‘by the book’.

However, we need to do all we can to ensure such an event does not happen again.

I therefore instructed Dr Bidrose to undertake a review of the situation and report back to Council as soon as is possible.

Dave Cull
Mayor of Dunedin

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