Scale of beach cleanup after West Coast rubbish dump burst 'big, nasty'

Monday, 1 April 2019

Drone footage shows full extent of the damage to the Waiho Bridge, near Franz Josef on the West Coast, in March 2019.

The cleanup job to remove rubbish strewn along 40 kilometres of West Coast beaches is on a much bigger scale than volunteers can handle, Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage says.

Okarito and South Westland residents have been on the beaches north of Fox River again during Monday, picking up plastic bottles, tyres and other rubbish washed downstream when the flood-swollen river, boosted by more than 600mm of rain last week, cut into a historic, closed dump on its banks.

Sage said it was now clear rubbish was polluting about 40km of shoreline and 20km of the river.

The Fox River legacy landfill site which has been damaged by floodwaters, allowing rubbish to flow downstream and on to West Coast beaches.

'Rubbish doesn't go away just because you bury it.

**READ MORE:

Volunteers have been cleaning up 40km of polluted beaches but a bigger operation is likely on Wednesday and Thursday.

* Decades worth of old rubbish strewn over 'pristine' West Coast beaches

* Asbestos dump found on the West Coast

Rubbish on West Coast beaches after the historic Fox River landfill was undermined by floodwaters.

* Torrential rain causes chaos on the West Coast**

'The issue is much bigger than can be dealt with by a few people working on a cleanup.'

Department of Conservation staff have been assisting the Westland District Council with assessing the spread of the rubbish and collecting what they can, including using a helicopter to get to the more inaccessible sites.

As a temporary measure the landfill site had been made secure, she said.

'The district council is responsible, but council may require assistance. Discussions are under way to understand the scale of the issues and what is required.'

The WDC was developing a recovery plan with the West Coast Regional Council (WCRC) and had indicated it might be seeking funding from elsewhere for the clean-up, she said.

Okarito resident Mike Bilodeau said the hope was that Wednesday and Thursday would be the days when everyone was on the beaches 'hitting it hard'.

'It's big, it's severe, it is an emergency, it's nasty, it's a disaster, it's heart-breaking. I have never seen anything like it – I know how special this place is.

'The district council and the regional council now have some great things in place and are co-ordinating with DOC. The trouble is the river is full and there will still be stuff coming out of it in the next wee while.'

Forest & Bird conservation ambassador Gerry McSweeney, who lives in South Westland, said it was too important an issue to 'just put on to a district council that has already got huge problems'.

'It is disastrous. It's a terrible mess. We are seeing the same thing happening as at Cobden, the Grey District Council dump, and the Haast dump was also doing the same, until the Westland District Council stopped it.

'This jurisdictional issue needs to be corrected. There needs to be a wider assumption of responsibility here.'

Westland Mayor Bruce Smith said the Fox River dump dated back to 1948, and was capped in the late 80s or early 90s.

He said the land was used to build a concrete-floored recycling centre that was about 20 metres away from the river.

Smith said there did not seem to be a lot coming out of the old dump at this stage but a lot of the recyclable waste had been swept away.

'We know its a serious risk to the environment and we'll be doing whatever we can to mitigate it.'

He said the river would begin to go down over the next few days of fine weather and then it would be possible to get a better idea of the scale of the problem.

There were a number of dumps along the West Coast, some of which were 100 years old, Smith said.

'I guess we'll be looking and considering where the old sites are … whether in fact they're a risk, if they are a risk, what the cost is to mitigate that risk and then its up to the age-long question of who pays the bill?'

He said he had walked about a kilometre along the beach at Okarito on Monday evening and not seen any rubbish, which was a credit to the local community.

Christchurch coastal geomorphologist Emeritus Professor Bob Kirk warned there was a risk rubbish could drift both ways along the coast.

While the predominant longshore drift was towards the northeast, if waves and swells were arriving from the northwest or north the sea could push material southwest instead.

In a media release, the WDC said contractors had carried out work to stop other rubbish from being exposed and swept downstream.

The council said it 'hugely appreciated' the work of volunteers on the polluted beaches.

A WCRC spokeswoman said the council was 'unsure how many other legacy landfills' there were on the Coast that were close to rivers or beaches.

MetService communications meteorologist April Clark said the West Coast would have a couple of days of settled weather for the cleanup before another front rolled in later on Thursday.