Coast mayor and conservation minister in spat over landfill rubbish blame

Thursday, 11 July 2019

A war of words has erupted over the Fox River dump clean-up, with Westland District Council financial mismanagement being blamed for its limited response.

Rubbish was strewn across 1620 hectares of the Fox River bed after a storm in March exposed a disused landfill, sparking a call for volunteers to help control the environmental fallout.

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

The Department of Conservation (DOC) took over responsibility for the clean-up after the council stopped work due to lack of funding. It had already spent more than $1m on the storm damage.

Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage told RNZ it was not DOC's role to resolve 'mismanagement of councils in the past'. She said she intervened because the rubbish was in the Westland Tai Poutini National Park and South Westland World Heritage Area.

Volunteers continue to clean up rubbish from an old landfill in the Fox River.

The New Zealand Defence Force has joined the clean-up effort.

* 81 year old volunteers for Fox River rubbish cleanup

* Urgent plea for more Government funding for West Coast rubbish clean-up

Rubbish has entered the Westland Tai Poutini National Park.

* New Zealand's piles of historic rubbish-with a sea view

* West Coast waste will end up in deep sea canyon, scientist warns

* Scale of beach clean-up after West Coast rubbish dump burst 'big, nasty'**

'The Westland District Council said it couldn't cope and it was calling down a short term loan to pay for some of the costs involved. That shows a degree of problems with financial management, I think, with that particular council.'

Mayor Bruce Smith hit back, defending his council's financial decisions.

'We put in place the loans after the 100-year flood. I would say that was a good decision,' he said.

He questioned DOC's response to a slip from Mills Creek further upstream into the Fox River, which blocked the glacier access road at the end of February. It was the second washout in a year and cost about $1.5m to repair.

The dump was 65 metres from the river before the slip, Smith said.

'[The slip] brought millions of tonnes of gravel into the Fox River and built up the level of the river. That's what caused it. With a 100-year flood it diverted the course of the river and it took out the landfill.'

Okarito resident Mike Bilodeau, who began organising the volunteer clean-up effort when the landfill was first washed out, said the authorities should be looking at Fox River as a way of preparing for the future when other at risk landfills become damaged.

'The Westland District Council didn't do what they were supposed to do. They came to the table with the bare minimum because they were hoping all along that someone else would take responsibility. That was the problem from the beginning.'

It was now a national problem, he said.

Central Government 'dropped the ball from the beginning' by not looking at the wider issue of how it could be prevented from happening again.

Four months on, volunteers were still 'only scratching the surface'.

People can sign up to help with the clean up at www.doc.govt.nz/operation-tidy-fox-volunteer