Residents affected by the water lead contamination issue in east Otago hope a top level review will shed some light on the issue.
A water tanker was provided for affected residents. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Associate minister of health Ayesha Verrall has ordered a rapid review into the health system response after the toxic heavy metal was found in the water supply, saying what has happened in the town is unacceptable.
The review will examine the overall health response to the situation, and how the risk to public health was assessed.
However, Karitane resident Gary Offen was worried the cost of the government review would be too high and the focus was in the wrong place.
"At the moment, the country needs every penny we can get. But I do believe that there should be a person responsible for holding back the information. The spike in the lead should have been made public then and a review of that is necessary, but whether it's a government one or not, I'm not sure about that," Offen said.
He has been pretty happy with the council's response so far.
"Dunedin City Council have reacted really well. They've made sure that there is adequate fresh water for everybody to drink and they're even going over backwards with the fresh vegetables, blood sampling. They can't really do any more to allay any fears that the public might have. The big problem is finding out where the lead problem comes from."
That issue still sits with Dunedin City Council, which has announced it will replace 4km of pipes in the next few months.
Hawksbury Village resident Andrew believed that was exactly where the focus should be.
"I'm a little bit concerned, not a lot of surprise given there's a lot of old pipes. But it wasn't that shocking to me, like the possibility has always been there with how old a lot of that infrastructure is," he said.
A Hawksbury Village resident says the old infrastructure meant it was not shocking to hear of news of elevated levels of lead in water samples. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Andrew supported the government review.
"Anytime anything like this happens where there's people exposed, it's good to figure out what happened."
He could understand why a red flag was not raised earlier because there had been only intermittent spikes of lead, Andrew said.
He got his blood tested for lead earlier today at the free community clinic at the East Otago Events Centre in Waikouaiti.
More than 190 people had blood taken by early afternoon after they first opened the clinic at 9am. Another 280 people were tested yesterday.
WellSouth chief executive Andrew Swanson-Dobbs said it had been a positive start with the free testing clinic, which was set to remain open for the rest of the week.
"The results go directly to people's GP so they can call their general practitioner and get the results. But our call centre that we've used in the past for Covid and now for the lead levels, they can call them and get the results or we'll be calling people too," he said.
While individual test results are expected to take about 48 hours, it could take two to three weeks for any findings to be made public.
Swanson-Dobbs said going through all the collated data would take time.
"A lot of officials need to look at all that information and call the public meeting when they've got the information to tell the public back," Swanson-Dobbs said.
"But be reassured. The individuals who have come in today, tomorrow and up until Friday, will be told as soon as our labs have processed what their blood levels are. So individually as soon as possible, but collectively as a community, that will be up to Public Health and the council to come back to the community and say what the overall results look like."
Residents should start to receive their test results from tomorrow.
